In The Shadows
by D. L. Squared
Summary: [Somewhat] editted! My version of the 4Kids movie with the same basic conflict, but I've thrown in my own twists and attempted to fit it better with the rest of the storyline. My first FF.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The desert winds blew across Egypt on a dark, cool night, kicking up sand through the city streets. Riding his steed, the pharaoh moved swiftly through his kingdom, wearing a cloak to disguise his identity. Out in the desert area near his city was his destination: a hidden tomb near one of the great pyramids.

He parked his steed outside the hidden tomb only he and a few of his servants were aware of. A horse was already there, standing outside of the opened tomb door. The king leaped off his horse, lit a torch, and walked down the narrow stairway. Waiting for him, down in the basement like room, was one of his servants, standing next to a stone table covered with hieroglyphics. This servant of his was one of his scribes, and had finally completed the table with the markings his pharaoh desired.

"My lord, the table is complete," he told his king.

The pharaoh stared at his scribe's masterpiece, reading the ancient scriptures for any careless mistakes. He wanted only perfection on it, for it was his belief that it would be of use in the near future.

"Excellent work," the pharaoh praised. He put his hand inside his cloak pocket and pulled out a marble sized sphere, glowing with blue light.

"Ah, the fourth piece!" the scribe exclaimed. "So the mighty protector did shed some of his power on us."

The great king stared into the small yet powered sphere and placed it with the other three spheres of power, each holding little power of some of the Egyptians' great gods.

"No power is missing, is that right?" the pharaoh asked his scribe.

"No, my pharaoh! The power of the other three still remain!" he pointed at the three other spheres, each glowing with a different light.

"Behold, the four potency of our Gods!" he said, pointing at each marble and stating the God which they came from. "Shining in black comes the God of the Dead, Anubis. The great sphere of yellow brightness comes from the creator Ra, the Sun God. The God of Resurrection in Eternal Life, Osiris, lies in the power of the red sphere. And finally, the last addition to this quad, is the Bes, the Guardian from Evil and misfortunes!"

The scribe applauded the pharaoh's accomplishments. God powers were deadly these days, and now they would be sealed away until the necessary time.

"My pharaoh, shall you take a piece of strength for your own?" the scribe asked his master.

The pharaoh sighed and began to leave.

"Holding the power of one of these is an automatic threat to our world," the pharaoh laughed. "Besides, perhaps it is not human hands that they will fall into."

The scribe respected his king's greedy free nature. He followed his highness, closed the tomb, and returned to the city.

Covered with old rags and dark clothes, the tomb robber went unnoticed. The pharaoh and one of his scribes had gone away now, and the timing could not have been more perfect. Carefully, he pulled open the stone door to the tomb, lit a torch and walked in the tomb where the pharaoh and his servant had left the world's greatest, feared power. He moved with ease down the narrow stairs, his dirty, scratched up feet moving at a blinding speed.

At last, he reached the bottom, seeing the four spheres of power lying helplessly on the table. With a long smile on his face, the tomb robber observed each sphere carefully, reading the scriptures carved below each one. Finally! He, a humble slave, would have a power greater than that of the pharaoh, and all would bow to him.

However, this wasn't for himself. As much as he had wished to take control of the sands of Egypt, his age would soon get to him, and the conditions in the deserts would not help him last longer. Yet he would make sure his own blood carried the strength of a God.

He knew he could not stay long. Besides, it was only one he desired, and it was the only one that would be able to gain even more strength if gathered the correct power. What a deadly beast it could create if put into hands.

The tomb robber removed his hood, his brown, angry eyes shining in the light from the torch. His dirty blonde, messy hair hung across half his face, covered with sand. He was a tall, skinny figure of lightweight for a man, which allowed him to move quickly. His long fingered hand stuck out, snatched the first sphere farthest on the left, and put out his torch. Again he moved back up the stairs and closed the tomb. It looked as if he had never been there, with the exception of the missing sphere that shined in black.

His home being at the edge of town, the tomb robber made it home safely without a steed. He walked inside, his wife cradling their newborn son in her arms.

"How is he?" he asked her.

"Great," she smiled at her husband. "Have you gotten our son our gift?"

"Oh yes, and what a gift it shall be!" he smiled at his wife. He pulled one of the spheres of power from his pocket. Being a tomb robber herself, his wife was impressed with him being able to take one so easily.

In the corner of their small house, the black haired man picked up a crystal in which he had built to be shaped like a pyramid. In the center of the front side of the pyramid were two gold plates that surround a hole on top and bottom. He placed the sphere of power inside the little hole that had been shaped for that single purpose. Now it looked like an ancient eye on the front side.

The husband grabbed some rope, ran it through the loop on top of the crystal, and turned it into a necklace for his son. He then placed it in a gold box that he had stolen from another tomb, putting away until his son was ready to wield its power.

"We have not yet decided a name for him," his wife smiled. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

"Only after the God where which his power comes from," he said. "Anubis."

"Great pharaoh!" a priest ran into the chamber where the pharaoh rested in his throne. "They are here!"

The pharaoh stood up from his throne and followed his priest. There had been rumors going around about a baby boy being named after a God. Such things were never allowed! The name of a God was to remain with a God only, and curse those who take the name of one.

"My lord," the priest said as he led his king to the family. "Only the dark would dare take the name of a God, and all who live along the Nile in our society know it."

The pharaoh nodded his head. He knew what he had to do.

The priest and the pharaoh reached the room where a couple of husband and wife sat with their baby. They stared up into the pharaoh's dark eyes, his long blonde hair and short beard blowing with the breeze that blew in from the doorway.

"Please, your highness…" the mother began to plead.

"You dared to take a name that originated from a God and give it to your son?" he asked them in a vicious tone.

The mother put the baby boy in the pharaoh's arms. She could only pray for the best, knowing that his life was in danger as long as his name remained. The pharaoh looked and the defenseless baby. The baby was a larger than normal baby, with two brown friendly eyes. The pharaoh looked deeper into the newborn, attempting to sense any evil the boy might contain within. He should not have had to look this deep. Instinct should have told him instantly if darkness filled this baby's heart! Even looking deep, he only found an innocent soul. The baby began to kick and cry, stopping the pharaoh from looking into his soul. While he wished to do nothing to something so innocent, justice had to be served. The pharaoh stuck his hand on the baby's head, and a light glowed from his hand. After a few minutes, the light disappeared. With a look of shame on his face, he handed the baby back to his mother.

"Take him, and go home," he told them, walking out of the room. The priest, curious about what curse he put on the God named baby, followed.

"Sire, I ask of what curse was placed upon the demon child?" the shorter priest asked his pharaoh.

The pharaoh tried to turn his head away, but it was of no use, because it would not heal the guild that repeated in his head.

"It was no curse, but a spell," he told the priest. "A spell of righteousness and undoing."

"What?" the surprised priest exclaimed. "A devil like that should have been given the poison curse! Why such a light punishment?"

"I looked into him," the pharaoh explained. "And found nothing but…but innocence. I could never curse an innocent child with death if he was guilty of nothing, not even instinctively none darkness. Even when I first stared at him I saw nothing, and we both are aware that if he truly carried darkness, then the first sense would have been activated. I placed that spell on him for any reason he may cause chaos, but it is only sparked by his defeat."

The pharaoh finally looked eye to eye with the priest.

"Besides, the real curse of this child lies in his name as he wanders the streets in the city in the days of his youth," he noted.

The priest sighed, knowing that his pharaoh was likely correct. Though still confused on why the boy with a God name contained pureness, he trusted his king.

"You are a good man, my lord," the priest praised him.

"Thank you," the pharaoh thanked him. "There was also another factor I could not disregard: the birth of my own son is approaching."

Some years long after the pharaoh's son was brought into the world, the boy with the God's name had lived up to all expectations. His evil duty plagued Egypt for some time, and it was the newly crowned pharaoh that had brought everything back to its normal state.

The priest Seto walked into the chamber where many of the new pharaoh's servants and priests sat.

"So," another priest began. "I suppose our new pharaoh has much to offer for us. He restored Egypt and defeated the cursed man with a God name."

"I understand it not how our old lord could have sensed nothing from that man with wicked powers," said another priest.

"That man's power, it was so dark and so strong. Where has such strength come from? It was as if he had the power of the actual God himself," a servant thought aloud.

The priests and servants were finally aware that the highest ranked server of them all, Seto, had entered the room and heard all of their nonsense.

"Our lord has proved his destiny to be true, just as his father spoke of," Seto told them. "He defeated the darkness of the God named poser, and there is more still to come of him. Anubis is a thing of the past now, and we must start looking ahead."

The priests and servants agreed. They gave a toast to their great new pharaoh, and left to continue with their duties. The priest Seto was the only one remained in the chamber.

"But I feel that this is not the last of that cursed soul," he said to himself, walking out of the room in search of his friend, the pharaoh of Egypt.

5000 Years Later 

Yugi walked into his room and slammed the door shut, coming home from a long day. It was practically evening, the crumb-sized stars already shining in the velvet sky, though shadowed by the clouds. Yugi pulled his backpack in front of him and pulled out an old stone box, which held the pieces to his most prized possession. Slowly, he opened the heavy box and took out a golden, upside-down pyramid shaped puzzle that lacked but a single piece before completion. Yugi pulled the missing link to his puzzle from his pocket, ready to fill the gap in the puzzle with it. After slaving over this gift from his Grandfather for eleven years, Yugi would finally finish the complicated, complex puzzle.

So mysterious this miniature, reversed pyramid was, and it seemed so valuable, being made with gold. Yet this puzzle, known as the millenium puzzle, seemed to have a power all on its own. The puzzle had turned a bully into a friend, even if he was the one that stole the last piece of the puzzle but later returned it, and kept the bond of family strong. As a bonus, Yugi could make a wish on it before completion. As he placed the last piece into the enigma he had worked on for so long, Yugi shut his eyes and wished…

Though it seemed just the opposite of his wish had come to him. The eye in the centerpiece glowed, and the puzzle shook in Yugi's hands. Dark souls began to erupt from the millenium puzzle, and the short Yugi found himself surrounded by them all as he quivered in fear.

That would be the last thing Yugi would remember. Soon enough the puzzle glowed again, and it was as if Yugi had lost control of his body. He was almost as if he were trapped inside of his own mind without knowing it. For this time at least, he would not know that truly another spirit was taking control of his body. The short stubbed Yugi became taller, his voice deeper, and he felt as if he had power, something Yugi had never felt before.

With another spirit controlling his body, this other spirit raised his arm out and seemed to have control over them all.

"Dark spirits that have emerged from one of the mystical items of gold, return to the dark home which you dwell!" he called out, and suddenly all the dark souls disintegrated in mid air, recurring back to the shadows. After the darkness had gone, the spirit that had controlled Yugi's body returned to the puzzle where he had laid dormant all these years.

When Yugi had regained control of his body, he was laying on the floor, confused on what had just happened. He looked down at his completed puzzle, suspecting that whatever just occurred was because of it. He did not fear it, but questioned on the strengths it may contain.

Neither spirits had suspected one thing however. Though the spirit that slept in the puzzle thought he had banished all dark souls in the puzzle back to the darkness, there was an escapee. One black hearted soul that would repossess the deadly power he once contained, and seek for a bloodthirsty vengeance like no other. And plotting would begin the second released from the puzzle that had chained him down for years.

A God's revenge had begun.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

He was reliving his worst nightmare. It was the supposed rematch of the generation: Seto Kaiba, owner of Kaiba Corporation, versus Yugi Muto, currently ranked the number one duelist in the world. Kaiba had just summoned his almighty Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500/3500), and boosted its power to 10000 attack points. Seemingly unstoppable, the three-headed dragon growled with ferocity.

"You're finished! My Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon is the strongest beast on the field, and even your Egyptian God Cards stand no chance!" mocked Kaiba. Yugi was used to all of his taunting and mocking, and plus he was far ahead of Seto strategy wise, as he already had all three Egyptian Gods, Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk, out on the field.

"Once again, you've been blinded by your selfishness and vengeful nature. Have you forgotten that I have all three Egyptian Gods on the field?" Yugi told him.

"And none of them even come close the strength of my Blue-Eyes!" Kaiba tried convincing him, but it of course was useless.

"And once all three are out on the field," Yugi began. "They can combine with each other to equal the power that of Exodia: The Forbidden One."

Kaiba stood in shock.  
"You mean…" he said almost speechless.

"Yes," Yugi went to call his attack. "Osiris, Ra, Obelisk! Unite your strengths to create infinite power!"

All at once, Ra, Obelisk, and Osiris moved to attack. Their powers so great that flames burst from their bodies once in motion. The flames that had emerged from them came together and became one powerful, light purple flame directed at the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

"I won't stand for this! Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, attack!" Kaiba yelled.

The three Blue Eyes heads powered up their white lightning attack and blasted them ahead. The mighty attack from the Ultimate Dragon collided with an even stronger attack from the Egyptian Gods. Within a second, the Blue Eyes' attack was too weak and began to fade back towards its sender.

"No!" Seto shouted in disbelief.

There was nothing he could do but watch his strongest beast once again fall to the power of the Gods. The attack from the Gods finally over powered the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon's and hit it directly, the ferocious dragon screeching in pain and its hologram exploding to pieces.

When the smoke from the attack cleared, Seto saw Yugi standing on the opposing end, once again victorious. He looked down on his duel disk only to watch the remainder of his life points drop to zero.

"And the winner of this duel…" the announcer of the duel began to say…

Sweaty and heart pounding, Seto awoke sitting up in his bed. For the past few days, Kaiba dreamt of nothing but his only losses to Yugi, all the way from his first duel with him to Battle City. Those memories were nothing but nightmares that were seemingly on a permanent replay button and kept showing Kaiba over and over again just how humiliating his losses were. Hands into fists, Kaiba knew he would not get a bit of sleep until he found a way to defeat his only rival.

Unfortunately for him, this meant he had to surpass the three most powerful cards ever created: the Egyptian God cards. He knew how to beat them individually, as he had learned from Battle City, but all three at once seemed nothing but impossible. So many times he had tried to calculate a flawless strategy that could take the Gods down, but every time it was the same result: failure. He was so sick of failing! Once more and he would surely lose it.

Kaiba looked over his shoulder to see his expensive alarm clock. It read 2:03 A.M. Annoyed, Seto got out of bed and slipped on some slippers next to his bed. In his room was a large desk, covered with business papers and dueling cards. He flipped on a lamp sitting on the desk, opened the front, and pulled out his deck, looking through his cards. He must have gone through it at least seven times within those next ten minutes. Not a single idea was coming to him, and Seto, being the low tempered man he was, began to lose his patience. He flipped one of his cards over to the backside, and at last an idea had sparked in his mind. On the right hand bottom corner, in small white print, was the name of the creator of Duel Monsters.

"Pegasus," Kaiba whispered to himself. The creator of the game, Maximillion Pegasus, was the man he needed to see, as much as Seto despised. Though it was early morning, Kaiba dressed himself and went to the computer room in search of the inventor's location.

* * *

A flash of dark light! Standing alone at the time, Yugi looked around the room of blue which he was in. In front of him however stood a tall, dark shadow of what looked like a wrestler. Out of nowhere, Yami Yugi's soul was standing before the dark shadow. He called for his friend, but it was like he did not hear him. The shadowed figured grabbed Yami by the neck and Yami's soul was consumed. Yugi again tried screaming for him, but it was too late. Then Joey, Tristan, and Tea's souls stood near the silhouette, unaware of what was happening. Yugi tried to warn them, but they stood there, dumbfounded and unconscious of the darkness behind them. Suddenly their souls were sucked into the darkness until they were gone. Yugi fell to his knees, saddened that his friends had been sapped away. Looking up for a quick second and now noticed Seto Kaiba standing next to the dark figure, glaring at it. What was a shadowed human form turned into a morbidly huge dog, and its massive paw swiped the air, its claws hitting Kaiba in the process. Kaiba screamed in pain and then he too faded. It was at that time Yugi realized he stood alone against this evil beast. Yugi backed away, inch by inch, as the completely oversized dog took larger steps closer to him. Closer, closer, closer until finally…

Yugi awoke from his own nightmare, breathing heavily and heart racing like a fleeing hare. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked out the window. The moon still stood high in the sky and the room stood still. Everything was just as it had been before he went to sleep. His eyes scanned the room, but found nothing neither peculiar nor menacing. Yugi went over to his desk and picked up his millenium puzzle, observing it. Even it, being the mysterious item it was, seemed to be fine. He was finally convinced enough to place the puzzle back on his small desk and head back to bed. Yugi, lying in his bed, looked around the room once more as he slowly shut his eyes. He quietly fell back asleep as the shadows of the night lurked away from the scene.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Moving at the speed just like the real beast, Seto flew in his Blue-Eyes White Dragon jet over to the island where Maximillion Pegasus now spent his days. The island belonged to him, and on it he had built a hell of a mansion. Three stories high, almost a mile long in length, his house could have very well been castle, built with stone similar to the material used to create the castles of England. Because of his huge house, the land lacked trees. In the little remaining land outside of his house, Kaiba landed the jet. He hopped out quickly and approached the entrance to Pegasus' castle. He hoped that he could finish his business with the man that tried to take over his company as fast and simply as he could.

Kaiba was accompanied to Pegasus by one of his many servants. Pegasus sat on a comfortable lawn chair next to his pool, sipping on a glass of wine. Another one of his servants poured more red wine into the cup as Pegasus sat up to see his visitor.

"Oh my, could this be my good friend Seto Kaiba?" he joked, though Kaiba found it far from funny.

"Shove it, Pegasus. You know that you and I are far from friends," Kaiba scowled. Pegasus, unsteadily, rose from his lawn chair.

"I beg to differ, Kaiba boy," he said, pleasantly smiling. The smell of alcohol was obvious in his breath. Walking uneasily, Pegasus moved closer to Seto.

"Listen, Pegasus, I came here for one reason only, and as disappointing as this may sound to you, it was not to come and chat it up here with you," he told him, backing away from the psychotic looking Pegasus.

"Oh what a shame," he said with a sad look on his face. "Then what brings you all the way out to my beloved island?"

"Well you are the creator of duel monsters aren't you?" Kaiba snorted.

"Why yes. Yes I am. How ever did you know?" Pegasus said in a sarcastic tone.

"You created all the cards, including the Egyptian God Cards," Kaiba got to the point.

"Oh my, you mean the ones that little Yugi has?" Pegasus laughed, again using a sarcastic tone. "I see."

"So you had to have made a card that could defeat them. Otherwise you wouldn't have made them in the first place, because if they were unbeatable, even _you_ wouldn't be able to beat them," Seto stated as Pegasus swallowed another sip of wine.

"How clever of you to think such a thing, Kaiba. You have truly shocked me by thinking of something that made sense for once," Pegasus' sarcasm continued. "However, a card that can beat the Egyptian Gods does not exist. There is one card that does stand a chance of fighting on the same field as them though."

Seto smiled with pleasure. That card would soon belong to him.

"And you're going to give me that card," he assured Pegasus. Almost hysterically, Pegasus burst into laughter.

"Oh Kaiba, just because we're friends does not mean that I intend to just give you the card," he said, beginning to walk towards Kaiba. His walking was crooked and unsteady, showing that the man was at least partially drunk.

"We're not friends, you drunken goat!" he scolded. "And I shall win them from you…in a duel!"

Putting his hand in his front pocket, Kaiba took out his deck. Pegasus stared at him for a moment and again started laughing.

"You honestly think I'm going to duel you?" he began. "Kaiba boy, I am retired from dueling now. I sit here on my ass all-day and collect money from the millions that buy my product all over the world. I don't duel anymore. In fact, I plan to sell my cards soon! Just think how much I could make on such a powerful deck!"

Kaiba just snorted.

"It'll be worth more if you put these in your deck," he said. He held up in his hand all three of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards. "I put these on the line, and if I lose, they're yours. But if you lose, that card that can defeat the Gods is mine."

With only four in the world, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon card was among the rarest and most valuable worldwide. Though expensive cards were put right under his nose, Pegasus stared blankly into them as if they had no worth.

"Kaiba, had you asked me a few years ago, you know, when I was busy taking over Kaiba Corporation, I probably would have taken you up on your offer, but I think that you'll find my heart not so greedy these days," he continued to laugh. "Besides, you'll find that another loss would be much too harsh on you. Then again, at least it wouldn't be from Yugi this time."

Kaiba had had enough of Pegasus' derisive humor. He put the Blue-Eyes and the rest of his deck back in his pocket and grabbed Pegasus by the shirt, holding a fist above his head.

"Listen you frenetic bastard, you're going to give me those cards whether you like it or not!" he yelled in his face, but Pegasus continued to laugh.

"Wow, somebody needs a hug," Pegasus giggled beginning to wrap his arms around Seto's body. Furiously, Kaiba pushed him to the ground. A bit dizzy and his sight a little blurry, Pegasus uneasily stood up and smirked. "You really are willing to go the distance just to get a card that has a slight chance at actually beating Yugi boy and his God cards aren't you?"

Kaiba wiped the dirt Pegasus' dirty hands had gotten on his white shirt, staring dirtily at Pegasus. He had come to the decision that he would not leave until he had possessed what he came for.

"I told you that I came here for the card that could beat the Gods, and I will not leave until I get what I wish!" Kaiba said stubbornly.

"Well you won't be getting it from me," Pegasus said, sitting smoothly back into his lawn chair. He patted it and winked at Kaiba to come sit with him. "Come now, Kaiba. Come sit here with me and we can talk about your helpless attempt to defeat Yugi over a glass of wine."

"You're about the last person I'd have wine with!" he scolded as Pegasus sipped on his sixth glass of wine.

"Well if you're going to be so hostile," Pegasus signaled security to escort Seto out of his mansion. The tall, wide security guard grabbed Kaiba by the arm and was basically dragging him out of the yard.

"Whether you're sober or not, I promise you I will get that card!" Kaiba screamed as he was being kicked out of the house.

"Bye, bye Kaiba!" Pegasus waved. "Do come back and visit! I sure do enjoy your company, no pun intended!"

By then, Seto was out of the house and left in the front yard of the large house. The gate that led to the backyard was then locked. Kaiba tried to force the door open, but it would not budge. Enraged, Kaiba began walking back to his jet, but he planned not to leave. He would get that card, no matter what it took.

Getting closer to his Blue-Eyes jet, Kaiba found himself randomly confronted by a stranger. Old rags and dirty clothes, making him unrecognizable covered the man's face. His hands and feet, the only pieces of his body visible, were scratched up and full of blisters. The man walked as if he were a robot, slowly and in a smooth motion. Kaiba tried to walk around him, but the man stepped to the side and ended up in front of him again.

"Who are you?" Seto asked, annoyed.

"You seek a card that possesses the power to defeat the three Egyptian God cards, and your goal is to defeat the number one duelist in the world," he said, his voice deep yet soft. A bit surprised by his knowledge, Kaiba stepped away from what looked like a homeless man.

"What?" Kaiba tried to pretend that he was unaware of what the man was talking about.

"You suffer from humiliation all because you have lost several duels to a single duelist that goes by the name of Yugi Muto," the homo continued. "And here you are now, searching for an answer to his seemingly invincible God cards that have been the key to many of your losses."

"Shut up!" Kaiba screamed, upset that the subject of his losses to Yugi was brought up. "I will get what I came here for, and then I alone will defeat him!"

"Yet you come crawling to a drunk old man for the card you search for," laughed the Hobo. "The card that drunk has, yes, it is one you will want, but it is not the card you seek."

"How do you know? Are you saying that there are two cards that can defeat the Gods?" Kaiba asked, finally interested in what the beat up man had to say.

"Oh but of course," the man nodded. "And guess who has the second card."

The man reached into a pocket in his dirty pants and pulled out a trap card. He showed it to Seto, and Seto stood in amazement. It really was the card that could defeat the three Egyptian God cards. He tried to grab it, but the man quickly pulled it away from him.

"What do you want for it?" Kaiba said, pulling out his deck and wallet. "Anything but the Blue-Eyes."

The man turned his back to him.

"I have a different deal that does not involve money or cards being exchanged," he began. "First, you must get the card that drunken idiot has. It is sitting on top of his deck in his room kept inside his wardrobe. It is not hard to find, and he always keeps the front door unlocked and unsupervised."

Kaiba was not expecting the man to propose stealing the card from Pegasus.

"Why do I have to get this card?" he demanded an answer.

"It is only for your benefit. You see, you and I are homogeneous when it comes to revenge for humiliation," he explained briefly. Kaiba understood what he meant, but bothered not to ask just what humiliation this man suffered from. "Anyway, the deal is this: I will give you this card as long as you get the other card from Pegasus, and you use them both in the duel with your rival."

Nothing could have made Kaiba more satisfied. So easily he would get the cards he needed, and here was this man that was not only willing to give one of the cards to him, but he was someone he could empathize with, though that did not make him feel much better. Seto grinned and rubbed his hands together, knowing that he would soon have the materials necessary to put Yugi down, and put him back at number one.

"Consider it a deal," Kaiba agreed. He put his hand out for the card, but the man shoved his hand back.

"Get the card from the psycho first. Only then will you get this card," he pointed Seto back into the direction of Pegasus' castle. Without hesitation, Kaiba dashed back to the house in desire of getting the one card he had wanted from Pegasus.

Standing alone, the hobo, his identity shadowed by a dark soul, smiled. The stones were being put in place, and soon his desires would be fulfilled. He laughed as he watched Kaiba run after one of the final pieces to his long plotted trap.

_The strings to the puppet have been attached,_ he thought to himself.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The front door creaked open, Kaiba slowly pushing it open. He walked in carefully to Pegasus' enormous mansion. A giant, golden chandelier hung high above on the ceiling, and the walls had all sorts of gorgeous paintings on them. The walls were of vanilla paint, with the ceiling painted of the sky with fluffy clouds soaring above. There were small tables with plants and miniature statues standing all over. And this was only the entrance. The rest of the house was filled with similar items, each large room containing remarkable art. Of course, Kaiba had no fascination for any of this. He was interested only in Pegasus' room, which was up two stories of stairs.

Quickly, Kaiba rushed up to the third level of the house. He walked down a long hallway, with a few rooms on each side, none being Pegasus'. Seto would be able to recognize Pegasus' room. There would be a picture of Pegasus, and a king-sized bed that could fit at least three people. Knowing how self-absorbed the man was, Seto expected only the best and most expensive. Yet the only item of interest was Pegasus' wardrobe, which was supposed to contain his deck and the card that defeated the God.

At the very end of the long, candled hallway, Pegasus' overly gigantic bedroom sat clean and organized. A long dresser stood against the wall; his unsurprisingly king-sized bed was next to the end closest to the big window. Upon entering the room, to the right, was a bathroom connected to his room. In there was a walk-in closet containing many pairs of shoes and expensive clothes. A delicate shower and bathtub with pearly sinks sat in the bathroom, also clean and unmessy. Next to the bathroom entry was a fancy wooden desk with Pegasus' diary and a glass that used to be full of wine on top of it. And finally, while it seemed to be that last thing he noticed, the tall, also wooden wardrobe sat across from the dresser.

Kaiba saw the wardrobe and snickered, walking over to it and beginning to open the front doors on the top of it. He was stopped, though, by a laughing voice coming from Pegasus. Kaiba, cautiously, tip-toed to the window, which looked out into the backyard, to make sure nobody was coming. He would find not only that nobody was coming, but that Pegasus had truly lost himself.

"Mr. Pegasus, sir, please! Restrain your self!" one of his servants said trying to grab hold of Pegasus' arm.

"Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!" Pegasus yelled, practically rolling on the ground laughing. He had quite the dazed look in his eyes and his voice was of a higher pitch. "I'm my favorite cartoon! Guess who?"

Pegasus began hopping around the backyard like an inane rabbit, also making a face that was supposed to be that of a bunny. While he did fall every time he hopped, he unsteadily pulled himself up and began to hop again. Throughout all of it, he just kept laughing.

"Hop! Hop! Hop!" he said repetitively. "Now guess who?"

He then started walking around, though he really was waddling because of he had no balance on his feet, trying to impersonate some other cartoon he watched daily.

"La! La! La! I like to sing!" his voice cracked as he fell back to the ground. "Wasting away again in Margaritaville!"

"Please, sir, won't you come sit down?" the servant begged him.

Pegasus was obviously not listening, not that he could really help it by then. He began walking like a zombie, continuing to sing horrendously. He had probably the worst singing voice anyone had ever heard, and the fact that he was completely wasted did not help.

"This is the song that never ends! It just goes on and on, my friends! Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was. And they'll continue singing it forever just because..." he sang loudly. He sang it numerous times until the servant had had enough of such an annoying song.

"Mr. Pegasus! Enough!" he tried to tell Pegasus, but then Pegasus just started singing another song.

"My loneliness is killing me!" his singing continued with Britney Spears. He even attempted to do the dance moves to it, flailing his body around and slapping his rear end. "I must confess I still believe! When I'm not with you I lose my mind! Give me a sign. Hit me baby, one more time!"

Up on the third floor, Kaiba stood and watched a drunken Pegasus lollygag around the yard, making a fool out of himself. Seto wished he had the camera at that moment and used it as possible black mail for Pegasus. Kaiba finally came to the realization that he had been distracted by Pegasus' foolishness that he had forgotten he needed to grab the ultimate card from Pegasus' deck.

He returned to the wardrobe, opened the doors, and saw Pegasus' deck sitting by itself in the middle. It hadn't been used in quite some time, so it was no surprise that it was a bit dusty. Remembering what the hobo said, Kaiba grabbed the card on top of the deck and looked at it with amazement. This was indeed a powerful, God defeating card! Perhaps its strength was not quite as strong, but it had all the effects to bring them down, and with Kaiba being an excellent strategist, he would be able to put this card to good use. Kaiba slammed the doors to the wardrobe shut, accidentally sending the cards of Pegasus' deck scattering about the wardrobe. He put the card he had taken with his own deck and put it back in his pocket.

Seto walked to the window tempted to see Pegasus drunk again.

"Mr. Pegasus, look out!" the servant ran over to him and saved Pegasus from walking headfirst into the deep end of the pool. Once pulled away from the pool, Pegasus walked back over to his lawn chair and opened the bottle of wine sitting next to his cup. Like some kind of beer drinking contest, he began chugging it down. The servant was able to pull it away from him before he could finish the remainder of the bottle, but Pegasus began walking around aimlessly again. He then started strutting over to the bird cleaner, where doves were bathing at the moment.

"Hello, my friends! Come to papa!" He yelled, running over to the fountain. In great fear, the birds flew out of the pool of water and away from Pegasus. "No, my lovelies! Come back to me! Come back!"

Kaiba laughed, still not noticed by anyone in the backyard. Oh how he wish he had at least a picture now! Just a picture! It was hysterical to watch Pegasus as a drunken goat.

Pegasus ran faster, his balance still quite awful. When he was mere feet away from the bird cleaner, the birds long gone, Pegasus tripped and fell forward, his head smashing into the bird cleaner fountain. There was a loud, yet hollow, thump when his head crashed into it, water from the pool flying out from the impact. Pegasus laid there, motionless, knocked out like a rock.

"Oh dear," sighed the servant, walking over to an unconscious Pegasus, whose forehead was bleeding. "Not again."

Seto knew that they would be coming inside now. He walked away from the window, ran down the stairs, and slammed the door shut. As fast as he could, he ran away from the house, laughing from what he had witnessed and from the happiness of getting the card he needed.

He returned to his jet, the hobo leaned against it, waiting for him. Kaiba pulled the card he had taken and showed it to him. With satisfaction, the shadowed man pulled out the other card from his pocket. He handed it out to Seto, but as Seto reached for it, he quickly pulled the card away.

"I have but one last request," he told him. Kaiba put down his hand and listened. "Do not let your foe lose any life points until you play this card."

Kaiba raised an eyebrow.

"It's simple," the hobo explained. "If you wish to shock and make your opponent suffer, you will allow him to gain a slight early lead, then come back at him with full force after he believes he has already won. Trust me, he shall _suffer_, and he shall lose it all."

Kaiba's overgrown ego had gotten the best of him again. He found the hobo's request amusing and told him it would be done. Finally, his anticipation ended after he was given the one card that could stand against all three God cards.

"Now go," the hobo encouraged Kaiba to be on his way. "Make a flawless strategy that will take down your enemy. Let him feel the pain of the humiliation you have suffered from."

He wasted no time. Kaiba climbed inside his jet and started the engine. The hobo had run off, not wanting to get hit by the jet. Kaiba almost felt like thanking him, but did not and flew off to return home.

A storm rumbled harshly that night. Quietly, Mokuba walked down the hall of the tall business building, on his way to his brother's office. Mokuba had never seen Seto as happy as he had been that night in a long time. For once, he was smiling, even through dinner. He figured things must have gone well with Pegasus, though he was well aware of his brother's strong disliking towards the man. Mokuba, a bit timid at first, knocked gently on his brother's office door, which was locked. A few moments later, Seto opened the door, allowing his brother to enter.

"Hey, Seto," Mokuba greeted his brother. Though he was happy, Seto had locked himself in his office for the majority of the evening. "Whatcha doin', big bro?"

Seto sat back in his big black chair, looking through his cards. Mokuba looked over at him, watching him silently giggle as he looked at each card in his deck.

"Just thinking, Mokuba," he finally answered his brother's question. "Just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" he asked, his curious adolescent mind getting the better half of him.

"About tomorrow," he said. He put down his deck and stood up. "I need you to do me a little favor."

"Sure, bro," Mokuba automatically agreed. "What is it?"

"Tomorrow, Yugi and I, we're going to duel."

"Again?" sighed Mokuba, having seen several duels between the two.

"Yes, but I promise you it will be different this time," he assured his brother. "It will be the day the number one duelist reclaims his rightful spot, and the fickle is brought down to where he should be and should have been all along."

He had never heard his brother so confident. Sure, he had been confident in defeating Yugi before, but never like this.

"Ok," Mokuba said. "But what do I need to do?"

"Tomorrow morning, I need you to set up my new Dueling Dome at the edge of the city where the old light house used to be," he began. "Just set up the lighting and the field for the duel. Then when you've gotten my approval that everything is placed as it should be, then you need to go get Yugi. Wait at his house or something. He can't go far."

Mokuba nodded and then was sent out of the office. They would be leaving for home soon. Seto sent Mokuba to the limousine as he went back to his large business desk, turned off his computer, and packed his brief case. His deck was the last thing he took off his desk, looking at his two new cards before putting it away.

"This strategy is perfect," he said to himself. He smiled as he placed the two cards with the rest of his deck and put it away in his pocket. He turned the lights off and left the building, anxious for the next day to come.

It had been a long night. After awakening from a long sleep, Pegasus felt as if a truck had hit him. He wished to go back to sleep, but the severity of his headache prevented him from doing so. His head bandaged up, Pegasus slowly crawled out of bed, still quite drowsy, beginning to go downstairs to watch one of his cartoons.

On his way out, Pegasus had noticed one of his cards sitting on the ground next to his wardrobe. He knew that he hadn't touched his deck in months, so that something was wrong. He opened the wardrobe and saw his cards scattered about the large empty space. He quickly stacked them up and looked through them to see if any were missing. Pegasus was shocked at first to find one of his cards missing. He looked on the floor and in wardrobe to see if had misplaced it, but it was clearly missing. It then he remembered that the card missing was only card to his knowledge that had power almost equal to the God cards.

"Kaiba," he muttered to himself smiling. "Guess I will be seeing you sooner than I thought."

Like any normal adult, Sugoroku sat in his game shop, sipping on some coffee and looking through the day's newspaper. There was no news of particular interest, but he then came across an advertisement. It was advertisement, which many find a bore but this one caught particular interest of Sogoroku, for he was a retired archeologist. A new part of the Domino Museum was now up. Apparently, newly discovered information and ancient items were now being shown. Supposedly it was all about this God-powered fiend that threatened to destroy the world and live among the dead. Sugoroku suddenly had the urge to see it right away. Business was slow that day anyway, mostly because all the kids were away at school. Sugoroku switched the sign to closed, locked up and headed down to the museum.

The sun shined brightly in the sky in the middle of the afternoon. Seto had barely gotten a wink of sleep the night before, but he could not have felt any more awake. The excitement of finally defeating Yugi prevented him from sleeping. He even woke up especially early just to run through his strategy and cards once more. To him, everything seemed to be as flawless as it could get.

"Everything's set, Seto," Mokuba confirmed. Seto looked around the large, round dome to make sure the scene was set. He gave Mokuba a thumb up.

"Now Mokuba, go get Yugi. I'll be waiting for him," Seto sent Mokuba on his way as he gladly waited in the Dueling Dome for his rival.

After Mokuba had left, Seto pulled out his two new cards. Apparently he felt he would never get tired of looking at them. After all, in his mind, they were to be the keys to his victory.

_My pride is reclaimed today_, he thought to himself. _ But his will be killed_.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Ring! Ring!

The school's final bell rung, signalling school was out. It was a beautiful, midafternoon with not a single cloud in the sky and the temperature was perfect. Anxious to leave the school grounds, Yugi, Joey, Tristan and Tea stepped out of the school's doors, walking quickly.

"School could not have ended later," complained Tristan.

"No kidding," agreed Joey. "Let's grab a bite to eat, huh?"

They all agreed as they took their first steps off of school property. No sooner a large crowd had approached them, full of people whom they did not even know.

"Uh, you all tourists or somethin'?" Joey asked them sarcasticly, disregarding the duel disks attached to their wrists. "Ya lost?"

"No," one of them said to him then turned to the shortest member of their group of four. "You Yugi Mutou?"

"Yeah..." said Yugi, backing away. He knew it again was another group of duelists that wished to challenge him for his Egyptian God cards. It must have been the third time that week.

"Duel me!" one person after another yelled to him. "No short stub could possibly be capable of holding cards so powerful!"

The crowd of duelists circled around the four. Tristan and Joey stood in front of Yugi, hoping that he would not be noticed. Of course, this failed miserably and the crowd began closing the space in on them.

"First one 'oo gets to 'im duels 'im first!" one of the guys shouted. The large crowd ran in on them, the space that separated them being lost.

There was so much shouting and shoving that none of the duelists seemed to be able to find the shorter Yugi. Joey and Tristan continued to cover him and protect him from the mob, but soon even they wouldn't be able to hold them off. Tristan finally came up with an idea to get Yugi out of there.

"Tea, take Yugi and hide him somewhere! We'll distract them!" he shouted, Tea barely able to hear them from all the shouting from the duelists.

"You sure?" she called back to them.

"Yeah, now take him and go!" Joey ordered. Tea grabbed Yugi's arm and whipped him out of the crowd. Without looking back, the two of them dashed off into the city. Luckily for them, none of the duelists had noticed Yugi's departure until a bit later.

Joey and Tristan were able to sneak their way out of the large crowd, who was still fussing about with one another. They wiped the sweat off their foreheads and began to walk away.

"Hey, you two!" the crowd noticed them walking away. "Where'd Yugi go? What did you do with him?"

"Oh, I don't know. The guy's a shrimp, so he probably just crawled his way outta there while y'all head your heads up eachother's asses trying to catch him," Joey told them and laughed. The crowd was angered by his sarcastic remark.

"Hey, dog," a tall, brown-eyed duelist walked in front of the crowd. Though Japanese, he seemed to use a lingo similar to that of a supposed ghetto person. "You go'n tell us wurr this Yugi punk is, an' I'm go'n duel 'im and take his God cards! Ya hear?"

While the entire 'dog' name-calling was part of his lingo, Joey took it offensively, remembering the many other times he had been called a dog. Without fear, though significantly under sized, Joey approached him and was up in his face. Tristan tried to grab his arm, but failed.

"You callin' me a dog...dog?" Joey told him. "How 'bout _we_ duel?"

The duelist laughed.

"You ain't worth my time," he said, walking away. Joey grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back towards him.

"Let's see if you can handle a number one contender first! Then Yugi can school your ass if you still please for him to do so!" Joey was screaming at him now.

"Joey, I don't think Seto Kaiba's gonna want to make a trip out here, especially for us," Tristan warned him.

Furious, Joey shoved Tristan back and turned back to the dog calling opponent.

"Alright, ghetto boy! Let's duel already!" Joey challenged him.

Though annoyed, the skilled duelist decided to accept to teach him a lesson. Both duelists set up the holograms and set their duel disks to 4000 Life Points.

Panting, Tea and Yugi must have run to the middle of the city. They looked back to find no one following them, which meant they had gotten away for the moment. Somehow, they did not feel entirely safe. There were hundreds of duelists wandering the city streets, and just the sight of Yugi would make them run home to get their decks and duel disks. Hiding in an alley, Tea and Yugi brainstormed places they could go to hide for a bit, as they were sick of running.

"Popularity sucks," Yugi complained still panting. "I swear, I'm mobbed every five seconds of my life."

Yugi, who hardly ever complained about anything, poked his head around the corner. There were no duelists in sight at the moment, but Yugi could not afford to be deceived. For all he knew, he could have been stormed by another pack of duelists any second.

"We better decide where to go now, because if we go out there and people see us, we'll be mobbed," Tea noted. Yugi nodded in agreement.

"What's nearby that no one may suspect me to be in?" Yugi asked her, not giving much thought to it himself.

Tea thought for a few moments then poked her head out of the alley to look for a hiding place. There was a gorgeous fountain in the center of the town, with many people walking from store to store. The streets filled with cars and other modes of transportation. Then far across the street from where they were was the Domino Museum. Tea thought that would be the best place to hide out for a bit, because the stores were more packed with possible duelists than the museum would be.

"Over there," she pointed to the museum. Yugi liked the idea, and the two ran into the museum, hiding from the pack of duelists.

"And now, I sacrifice my last Scapegoat, my Alligator Swords, and my Baby Dragon to bring out Guilford the Lightning!" Joey had just summoned his best monster onto the field. "And with its special ability, I can destroy every one o' your monsters on the field!"

His opponent stood in disbelief. His arms fell to his sides and his face was in a matter of shock.

"That's right, dog!" Joey teased. "Guilford, destroy all his monsters, then attack his life points directly!"

In one giant swing of his massive sword, Guilford the Lightning slashed all of Joey's opponent's monsters to shreds, sending out a flash of lightning with the swing. The monster holograms screamed, then shattered in midair, disappearing. Guilford was the only monster, let alone the only card on the field. Guilford cried out in a loud tone, then leaped swiftly towards his target. He raised his sword above his head as Joey's opponent shrieked. Then Guilford swung his sword vertically, hitting the duelist with the sharp side of his blade. The sword flashed yellow as it moved, and the duelist was sent flying backwards and into another duelist. He stood up and looked at his duel disk, which showed his Life Points drop to zero.

"Now," spoke Joey, his duel disk reformed itself to a more portable piece of technology. "There anyone else who wants to face me? C'mon, at least ya won't be on the receiving end of Yugi's God cards."

The crowd of duelists began to run off, each of them going their own direction. Joey felt proud of himself for breaking up the group. As the hologram projectors returned to his duel disk, he stood tall as if he were king of the world.

"I gotta admit, that was pretty smooth," Tristan complimented him.

"You bet it was! Ya see that? I cleaned his clocks!" he began to brag.

"Oh yeah, you really took it to him. I mean you beat him by at least 300 Life Points. That's a lot," Tristan sighed as Joey continued to ramble about his great victory.

That had taken much longer than either of them had expected it to take. They had given Yugi and Tea plenty of time to make their escape. Now their main concern was catching back up to them.

"Oh boy," Tristan said. "Now we gotta find them again."

The two began walking in the direction they had last seen their friends run off to. It was already late afternoon, with the night still ahead.

Seto lifted his wrist and looked at his watch. He was growing impacient! He didn't want to wait another minute for Yugi to arrive so he could duel him. He began pacing around the dueling arena, his temper starting to run short.

Coming from the entrance, a familiar figure came in. It was the hobo Kaiba had encountered at Pegasus' island. Seto stopped his pacing as the hobo approached him, his face still hidden.

"I assume you have created a flawless strategy," the hobo said to him, almost whispering.

"Indeed I have," Kaiba assured him. "What are you doing here?"

"I have come to wish you luck on your duel, and I hope everything goes as planned," he patted Seto on the back. Kaiba stepped back.

"I won't need any luck to win this duel," Kaiba snapped. "I will claim victory of this duel! I will get back my number one duelist rank! I will regain all the pride Yugi swiped away from me for so long! I will-"

"My, my, aren't we a little autogenous?" the hobo laughed. "Do not worry, Seto Kaiba. I doubt you not in your abilities to win this duel and reclaim all you have lost. I have apathy for you."

"As you should," Kaiba remarked. "My strategy is indubitable! Indubitable, I say!"

"I really hope you have not had anything to drink," he joked. "Otherwise I'd call you Pegasus."

Kaiba couldn't help but grin at the remark.

"Well anyway, my quest here is done. Victory will be on your side tonight," the hobo said as he began to leave.

"Wait," Kaiba stopped. "Aren't you going to stay and watch me win?"

The hobo turned around and laughed lightly.

"You should not be concerned about that," he told him.

"But you gave me the card so I could defeat Yugi, because apparently you have something against him, too," Seto stated. "Why do you wish to see him fall?"

Again, the hobo laughed lightly and turned back towards the exit. The sunlight shining in from the doorway made the back of his dark clothes more visible.

"Not that it is any of your business, Seto Kaiba," he began. "Let us just say is that he will suffer the humiliation you and I have been through before. And vengeance shall be payed."

His words seemed to fade as he walked back out the door. Shoving the door closed with one hand, he pulled out a new toy from his belt, a small, sharp toy that would be of good use, if everything went accordingly, later that night.

Kaiba was a bit confused about the second half of the hobo's statement, but he was disconcerned with it. He looked at his watch again and his short temper and impacience returned. Instead of pacing this time, he pulled out his deck and looked through it once again. He pulled out the two cards that would be the answers to Yugi's defeat. Obviously he was obsessed with them, and his obsession would become the blinding factor that would prevent him from seeing reality.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After paying more than enough for an entrance fee into the Domino Museum, Tea and Yugi finally were in the museum. While they were really only in there to hide, they thought, since they indeed had payed, they could check out a few exhibits. There was a new exhibit that was now open for viewing, so they decided to look around.

The two walked into the newly built part of the museum. There was a good portion of items displayed in the new exhibit, but nothing too fascinating such as a mummy in its coffin, but it was still interesting to look at. Ancient scriptures and artifacts were all around, the hieroglyphics covering much of the stones and potteries. Of course, neither Tea nor Yugi had any idea of what this ancient type of writing said, so they were exploring, a bit clueless.

Walking into the second room of the exhibit, Yugi ran into a familiar face. His grandpa stood in front of a large stone tablet covered with hieroglyphics. Being an old archeologist, he had some idea of what it was saying.

"Grandpa!" Yugi called for his family member. Sugoroku turned around to see his grandson and Tea, who unintentionally and unknowing captivated him in a way.

"Yugi, what are you doing here?" he asked him.

Yugi just stared at him blankly, as if his grandpa should know already why he was there.

"Did you come to see the new exhibit?" Sugoroku asked with curiosity. Yugi sighed."Oh, I get it. You don't want to look like a nerd coming into this museum. Don't worry, you look perfectly fine."

"Grandpa!" Yugi howled. "I'm being mobbed by duelists again! I'm in here to hide."

"Oh I see now," he said. "That's your cover-up story. I must say that's a pretty good one. It's quite believable in your case."

Yugi gave him an odd stare, but Sugoroku only laughed.

"Only kidding," he joked. "Well as long as you're here, come check out this new exhibit with me. I think you'll find it much more interesting than it looks."

With not much of another choice, Yugi and Tea followed Sugoroku around the new exhibit. He would occasionally read off some ancient scriptures on some of the items, but nothing was particularly fascinating. It was almost the same idea of a field trip from an elementary school.

"Ooh, look at this," Yugi's grandpa pointed out a large stone tablet from a pyramid. "That's the sign for the Egyptian God, Anubis. See the jackal head? That's him alright."

Tea and Yugi sighed. Sugoroku had lost their interest a few exhibits ago.

"No, but look," he said trying to get their attention back. "It says something about...hmm...some enemy that had...similar strengths to the Egyptian God?"

Yugi at least turned his attention back to his grandpa.

"That can't be. No one except the Gods had that kind of power," Sugoroku doubted the scripture. "...Murder, then the raise of the dead?"

He continued to read the scripture in his head. The stone tablet was quite large, but contained large lettering as well, making it seem like there was a lot more written on it than there really was.

"What's it say?" Yugi asked, finally a bit curious.

"It says that long ago, there was this man, and he possessed the power of the God of the Dead," he read. "It says that four Egyptian Gods shed some of their power upon the earth within multicolored marbles: Anubis, the God of the Dead, Ra, the Sun God, Osiris, the God of Death and Resurrection into the Eternal Life, and Bes, the Guardian from Evil and Misfortunes. When the time came to use these powers, they realized one of them was missing, and assumed the boy with the cursed name contained it."

"Boy with the cursed name?" Yugi asked.

"His name...was Anubis," his grandpa told him. "It is automatically assumed that if one should carry the name of a God his soul would be sinful or cursed." He continued to read. "It says that all he had was a crystal in shape of a pyramid with a black pearl placed into its center, and he wore it around his neck."

"So he did have it," concluded Yugi.

"Not necessarily," Sugoroku continued. "The problem was...only the blood that sealed the power of the Gods away until later use would be able to tell if that pearl was of indeed a God. By the time the power was needed and they realized one was gone, the blood that had sealed it away had evaporated into the afterlife."

"So they never really knew what happened to it," Tea had finally listened in.

"They never came to any certain conclusions I suppose," he said, moving on to the next stone tablet. "Well, from what I can read from this tablet, it looks as if he probably was the one with the power. It says the cursed named fiend, when he came of adulthood, attacked Egypt."

Yugi, who had wandered off a bit to look at other items from the tomb, returned to where his grandpa stood.

"He used a mighty force that brought much death and darkness to the world," he said. "Dark, deadly powers no one had ever seen before, nor could one possibly possess. Even a pharaoh had not that kind of strength. He had but four magnificent beasts: three sphinxes, one which focused on the weakness of defense, another focussing on the weakness of attack, and the final one having the strength of both, and a mighty dragon that gained power by every man he killed. With these four beasts combined with his raw power, he was unstopable." He rubbed his chin and began reading once again. "He shadowed much of Egypt and intended to destroy it when...when a pharaoh came to power."

Sugoroku read the scriptures in his head for a moment, then his eyes buldged open in disbelief.

"How could this be? A kingdom with a new leader is surely to be very fragile!" he hollered. "And yet, the pharaoh, he succeeded in stopping this God powered beast?"

Yugi looked at the scriptures, but still could not read them.

"Apparently, this was the same pharaoh that sealed the dark magic of duel monsters away, but that this was his first succession," Sugoroku still stood in shock.

His heart stopped. Yugi knew who this pharaoh was.

"In the midst of a dark shadow game, the pharaoh used what they would later call the dagger of fate to bring him down," he said. "And it says that God named man's was indeed cursed, but it took his death for its activation."

Yugi stood and looked at the tablet, but not attempting to read it, in shock that his alter ego had been responsible for this fiend's defeat. At this time, his second spirit was present within his mind, listening to everything.

"The prophecy of this man is written here," Sugoroku read off the prophecy.

_Be not unaware of the man_

_The fiend whose dark soul beared a God's power upon the world_

_For he held light and shadow's doom in hand_

_And almost closed his fist on it_

_Know that he brought after life_

_To the innocent and guilty mortals that walked the sands_

_But that though his strength is great and feared_

_Fate made his curse take on_

_The blood he shed_

_It existed not any longer after his disintegration_

_His soul never to ressurect back to earth_

_And prevented from taking another mortal body_

_Let us remember his God name!_

_Mercy has been given upon us on these days_

_Thee shan't be unaware_

_Future's repetitive course may not contain a same fate_

Fascinated, Sugoroku had reread it several times in his head. Tea was a bit confused, though she had not been paying the entire time. Yugi took this time to speak with his alter ego within his mind.

"You...you did this?" Yugi asked his companion.

Yami Yugi could not answer at first, his nebulous memory counteracted him from recalling such events.

"His name, it is so familiar," he told Yugi. "Of all the pieces to my memory, I seem to remember the most of him, but much of it is still unclear."

"What do you remember?" Yugi continued asking questions.

"All the death...the darkness...the shadows...the pain," he said and fell silent for a moment. "A tragic unrecallable memory is all I think of. That memory is the key to my memorization of him, though I can't seem to see what it was."

Yugi, seeing his partner struggle to remember, smiled at him. He knew that soon, now with all three Egyptian God cards, they would soon find out the mysteries of his past. He was unconcerned with this matter because of that reason.

"You'll know soon enough," he reminded Yami Yugi. "Ra, the Sun of God, the Saint Dragon-God of Osiris, and the God of Obelisk will soon tell us."

Yami understood what he was saying, but still had a look of concern.

"A few nights ago," he began. "You had a nightmare."

Yugi knew what he was talking about. It was among the worst dreams he had ever had. Some silhouette had taken all of his friends into darkness, and Yugi could do nothing to stop it.

"What about it?"

"Something happened with the puzzle that night," Yami confessed. "I cannot explain what, but it was as if a spell was cast upon it."

Unsure of what he was saying, Yugi raised an eyebrow.

"It's unexplainable, and even I know not of what precisely what happened. Perhaps it was just I sensing your fear from the nightmare," Yami suggested a bit hopelessly.

"Don't mind me asking so, but what does that have to do with any of this?" Yugi questioned him once more.

"Future's repetitive course," Yami repeated a line from the prophecy. "That dream seemed known to me, yet not. I apologize for the constant contradiction of my own words, but you understand."

His mind was filled with so many questions that he wanted answers to, and Yugi knew it. It was as if a word was at the tip of his tongue, but he just could not say it. Yugi felt sorry for his pharaoh friend for the fact he could hardly remember anything.

"Soon," Yugi promised. "Your questions will get answers. We have what you need to reclaim your lost thoughts."

Yami smiled at his friend, knowing that he was right. Still, this petulant feeling of fear would not leave him.

Yugi finally brought himself back to reality, no longer communicating with his yami.

"What I do not understand his why they do not have the items this man had, like that crystal with the black marble, or his body for that matter," Sugoroku seemed to be talking to himself. "They did bury his body in a casket, or at least it states so. Now how could they not find it?"

Yugi shrugged his shoulders. His grandpa and Tea continued walking around the museum for a bit longer, waiting for the appropriate time for Yugi to make his appearance in the streets of the city.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

They had stayed in that museum much longer than they had planned or expected to. At least two hours had gone by when they had finally left. Tea and Yugi figured that Joey and Tristan would find them eventually, so they decided to head back to Yugi's house with his grandpa. It would be a bit of a walk, but they seemed to be enjoying eachother's company for the while.

Coincidently, as they were walking back to Yugi's, they were able to run into Joey and Tristan who had been searching for them for quite sometime.

"'Bout time we found you. Where the hell ya been?" Joey asked them, sighing in relief they had finally found them.

"Museum," told Yugi.

"Should have known. Tea was with you," joked Tristan. Tea slapped him on the back of his head and stared at him. Joey laughed.

"Oh come now, Yugi, you know you had a good time," Sugoroku tried to convince him.

"I guess, some things more interesting than others," he confessed. "We're going back to my house. You two coming?"

"Will there be food?" blurted Joey. Yugi nodded his head. "Then I'm there."

The five of them walked together back to Yugi's. The sun was beginning set by the time they arrived. Oddly enough, Seto Kaiba's limosine was sitting outside of his houses, Mokuba leaning against the front. Though surprised to see him, the five of them greeted their younger friend.

"Hey, Mokuba," Yugi greeted. "What's going on?"

"Hey guys," he replied. "I hate to rush you and confront you like this, especially since you just got home and all, but my brother wants to see you, Yugi."

"What? Now?" he asked caught off guard.

"Bring your deck. He wants to-" Mokuba was interrupted.

"Again?" Tea sighed. "What kind of strategy is it this time?"

"Not sure. He didn't tell me," he said. "I'm personally sick of it, too, but he's my brother, so I want to support him."

The entire group was impressed at Mokuba's maturity.

"Well...do I have a _choice_?" Yugi had to ask.

"Uh, not really. This is gonna sound strange, but Seto, he's been acting weird lately," Mokuba mentioned.

"Weird? You mean he was acting, oh what's that word that's not in his dictionary, _happy_?" Tristan said.

"Well, yeah," confirmed Mokuba. "He seems so confident, but he hasn't been bragging or become cocky or anything."

At that point, Yugi couldn't say no. He would want to go duel for the soul purpose of seeing Seto with an actual smile on his face. He ran up to his room, grabbed his deck and dueling disk, and came back down and hopped into the limosine.

"Any of you want to come? It's at the Dueling Dome on the edge of town," Mokuba offered.

"I'm going to stop at home first, then I'll come by," Tea said, beginning to run home.

"Eh, sure, I'll come along. Can never see that Kaiba get crushed enough times," Joey said and sat next to Yugi in the limosine. Tristan followed behind.

"How about you, Grandpa?" Yugi asked.

"Oh Yugi, I love watching you duel and all, but honestly, I think I've seen you beat Seto enough times to last the rest of my lifetime. I wish you luck though," he replied walking back into the game shop and waving. Yugi waved back as Mokuba jumped in and the driver shut the door. Speeding a bit, the driver made his way to the dome.

While Joey and Tristan were goofing off the entire car ride, Yugi fell silent, staring out the window, looking at the scenery. He had already accepted this duel, but he somehow felt that things would be different this time, and not in such a good way. It wasn't so much he had the fear of losing, but as if this were his last day alive, and he'd never know when his last breath would be.

With everyone distracted, Yugi used this time to communicate a bit with his yami. Apparently, the heterogenous spirits had the same type of indescribable feeling. Whether it related to anything else that they had found that day they were not sure. Regardless, the feeling of dueling Kaiba this time around was massively different, though defeating him many times before.

"I don't know what to think," Yugi explained. "It seems like every other duel I've had, but I can't explain why this one feels so different."

"Nor can I, but we'll try to finish this one as simple and quickly as possible," his yami said. "We've defeated him on many occassions, and there is no reason why we cannot do it once more."

In his mind, Yugi nodded to his partner. They would soon be switching positions, Yami taking control of his body and Yugi resting behind his other spirit, still being present to help. Yugi cut off his communication for the moment as the car pulled up to the large, half circle shaped Dueling Dome.

"Dang, this place is huge," Tristan commented as they stepped outside the long vehicle. "Sure I've seen it before, but only from a distance, and it looked a hell of a lot smaller."

"Come on. This way," Mokuba lead the trio into the Dome as the limosine pulled away. Joey, Yugi and Tristan followed him through the new, clean glass doors and into the main lobby.

The dome was pretty much a stadium, only indoors. It had been openned for the public yet, so it was fairly new, though it had been built for months. The floor was of a beautiful marble material, covered with a soft yet dark brown. The walls were composed of a vanilla colored brick, painted with duel monsters on it. A lot of work and cleaning had clearly been put into this dome.

"Only Kaiba'd buy this kind of stuff for his dome," Joey commented on its sophistication.

"You two need to go up the stairs and watch from the upper level," Mokuba pointed to a stairway nearby. "My brother wants no interference. Yugi you can go down that hallway next to the stairway. Seto should already be in the arena waiting for you."

Yugi nodded and began making his way down the hall.

"Hey Yug, I hardly doubt you'll need this, but good luck," Joey called to him and gave him a thumb up. Yugi smiled back at him as Mokuba stomped on his foot for his comment and Tristan harassed him for it. Joey chased Tristan up the stairway to the audience's area. Mokuba went to an elevator to an electronics room so he could keep an eye on the mechanics of the arena.

Walking down that long hallway, Yugi was having one final conversation with his alter ego, Yami Yugi. There was no turning back at this point, and while both still had that irritating feeling, they were still willing to go through with it.

"It could mean nothing," Yugi suggested, though both knew that it was not likely. Instinct had not failed them many times.

"Perhaps not, but let's still try to finish this as soon as possible," Yami said.

"Right," he agreed. "You ready for this?"

Yami smiled at his companion as they were ready to switch.

"Of course, let's do it," he told him.

The millenium puzzle flashed a blinding light as the souls of the two Yugi switched places. Yugi became taller, his face still looking similar but slightly different. Yami Yugi now had control of his friend's body, but Yugi's spirit stayed nearby. He slipped on his dueling disk and placed his deck in the deck slot, prepared to duel. The two of them entered the arena with bright lights spotlighting down on the arena and a big television screen that pictured the entire arena stood above them. They approached the large square field, where on the opposing end Seto awaited them.

"It's about time you showed up. For God's sake, it's almost night," Kaiba first told him, not even giving a friendly greeting.

"I came, and that's about more than you could ask for," Yami said, his voice much more resonant than Yugi's.

"I don't need your bull, because this time I'm ready to duel and beat you," Kaiba said. Yami noticed the unfamiliar large grin on his opponent's face. "I have a strategy that's nearly flawless, and I have cards that will take down your Egyptian God cards."

"Let me guess one of those cards: the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon," Yami couldn't help but taunt Kaiba a bit.

"You laugh now, but I'd be more concerned if I were you!" Kaiba snarled. "Death of your glory will come to you!"

Yugi and Yami both felt that peculiar feeling again. Seto had made several threats similar to this before, but the serious tone in his voice made it seem out of the ordinary.

"History shows you losing at my hands...again," Yami reminded him of the previous defeats Kaiba had against Yugi.

"History shows complete bull," Kaiba stated as he set up his dueling disk. "We live right here, right now, and all those other duels are over and done with. This one will change history, and it starts now."

Yami set up his duel disks, the hologram projectors being set in place and the field on his duel disk combined to make one. Both duelists set their Life Points to 4000 and the duel had officially began.

On the outside, Joey and Tristan stood and watched. They couldn't hear much of what Kaiba and Yugi were saying, but they still felt confident Yugi would again come out on top. Being the only ones in the crowd at the time, they watched the two draw five cards, signalling they were ready to start.

Mokuba had moved the mechanics room, controlling the lights and big screen television. Once everything was set in place, he sat back in his chair and prepared to watch a hopefully exciting duel. He had not seen his brother this confident this happy or confident in years, so he hoped that he had a good reason to feel that way.

"I'll move first," Kaiba agreed to make the first move. "I summon Familiar Knight (1200/1400) in attack mode."

He ended his turn.

"Very well," Yami drew his card to start his turn. "Queen's Knight (1300/1200) in attack mode! Attack his knight!"

Yami's Queen's Knight, one hundred attack points stronger than Kaiba's Familiar Knight, wielded her long, thin sword and dashed at the armored knight. Using both her hands, she pulled the sword back and thrusted it forward once in striking range of her foe. The sword went straight through the knight, and the Familiar Knight exploded and disappeared. Seto lost one hundred Life Points, bringing him down to 3900.

Queen's Knight returned to Yami's side of the field when Rare Metal Dragon (2400/1200) was summoned to Seto's field. Yami was well aware of Familiar Knight's special ability, and even though he had let Seto summon a monster with 2400 attack points, he could now summon a level one to four monster on his side of the field. He placed King's Knight (1300/1200) from his hand onto the field, which then allowed him to automatically summon Jack's Knight (1900/1600).

Joey and Tristan stood in excitement, waiting to see what Yugi's plan to take down Kaiba's strong beast was. They cheered him on, but he their encouragement went basically unheard.

"And this is for later," Yami placed one other card face down on the field and ended his turn.

In the back of his mind, Kaiba remembered he did not want to let Yugi lose Life Points until one of his new cards were played.

"I'll summon Dragon Dwelling in the Cave (1400/2000) in attack mode," Kaiba summoned a new monster, clearly another dragon type. He knew it would cost him a few more Life Points, but knew in the end it would be worth it. Now he was ready to attack, knowing Yugi had some kind of trap or magic card waiting for him. "Rare Metal Dragon, attack his Jack's Knight!"

As Kaiba had figured, Yami had a trap placed for him.

"I now use the trap Waboku," he called. "Your Rare Metal Dragon's attack is reduced to zero for now!"

Kaiba still had another monster on the field, and was tempted to attack. Again, he knew that he could not let Yugi lose Life Points yet. He placed a card face down and ended his turn, much to Yami's and everyone else's surprise.

"You'll regret not attacking me," Yami told him as he drew his card. "Jack's Knight, destroy the Dragon Dwelling in the Cave."

Jack's Knight drew his thick, long sword from its sheath, leaped across the field, and sliced the giant, green dragon down with one slash. The Dragon Dwelling in the Cave disappeared and Kaiba lost another five hundred Life points, leaving him with 3400. Kaiba still had no look of concerned on his face.

"I won't be regretting anything," Kaiba smiled at him. Yami was a bit confused, considering he had a good early lead and Seto seemed to be taking this duel quite lightly.

"I've knocked out six hundred of your Life Points already, and I plan to continue my destruction of them until they're all gone," Yami said. "I'll place two cards face down and end my turn."

"Suit yourself," Kaiba drew his card. He was getting a bit upset about how he was not drawing the one card he had wanted, and he did not want to lose any more life points for safety reasons. A nearby shadow, however, would make sure Kaiba would get what he wished. "I'll summon La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp (1800/1000) in attack mode. And since my Rare Metal Dragon's attack power has returned, I'll have him attack your Jack's Knight again, and La Jinn can take down King's Knight at the same time."

Again, he was well aware Yugi had a trap ready for him.

"I think not," Yami said. "Sword and Shield magic card activate."

The defense and attack points of all monsters then switched positions. Rare Metal Dragon and La Jinn no longer had the power to take down their opponents. Jack's Knight still had 1600 attack points and King's Knight had 1200 while La Jinn, who was attacking King's Knight, had 1000 and Rare Metal Dragon had 1200.

"Any regrets yet?" Yami asked him as his monsters destroyed Seto's two attacking monsters, since Kaiba had already declared his attack. Losing four hundred for the loss of Rare Metal Dragon and two hundred more for the loss of La Jinn, Kaiba saw his Life Points drop to 2800.

Yami and Yugi were skeptical. Kaiba was playing way too lightly. Normally he likes to start out strong, but he was either planning something or he was having a _really_ off night. Of course, they both assumed the best from Kaiba, but it all seemed too easy, seeing how he had almost lost half of his life points in the start of the duel, and perhaps the rest of them in the next turn. Not to mention he was unusually silent for most of the beginning of the duel.

Tristan and Joey noticed a bit, too. They did not care much however. Watching Kaiba getting crushed by a friend of theirs was enough to keep them happy.

Kaiba had placed a card face down and ended. It was now Yami's turn, and he drew and sent his monsters to attack Seto directly. Sword and Shield's affect was now over, and all of his monsters' attack points had returned to normal. Swords in hand, the three knights jumped at Kaiba and prepared to cut him to bits and finish off his life points, but Seto too had a trap waiting for them.

"I'm not regretting anything," Kaiba said as he revealed his face down card, Dark Wall of Air. "This card doesn't allow direct attacks on me for this turn."

The three knights' attacks were stopped and they returned to their end of the field. Yami had hoped he could end it then, but it was Kaiba he was facing, and though all seemed to be in his favor, Seto would not win as easily. He could do nothing else but end his turn.

Seto showed it not, but he was truly getting annoyed and concerened waiting for his one card, and he did not believe in this 'heart of the cards' thing Yugi had told him of. He needed that card then and now, and no later or his Life Points would be gone by next turn and in the hands of Yugi's weaker monsters. After waiting a few moments, he finally drew his card. Perfect timing! It was the exact card he needed, and he did not even use that 'heart of the cards' crud. Of course, it was no coincidence he had drawn it then, but he would only have to wait for Yugi to play the right card.

"I'll throw this out in defense mode: Stone Ogre Grotto (1600/1500)," Kaiba claimed. "And this...for later. Your turn."

He seemed to snicker, but Yami was not worried, especially after he drew his next card. The Saint Dragon-God of Osiris was now in his hand, and with three monsters on the field, Yami was more than ready to summon it.

"And now," he began. "I sacrifice all three of my knights for one of my mighty beasts: the Saint Dragon-God of Osiris!"

Though there was a ceiling inside, clouds seemed to shrouder above. Thunder cracked and then suddenly a bright red light spotlighted down to the ground. In that red-spotlight, a maroon shadow of a long, winged, two-mouthed dragon began to appear. Eventually the red light faded and the clouds went away, and what stood there was none other than the Egyptian God beast in the red light's place. The slithery red dragon, with a body that extended for miles perhaps, cried to the sky, lashing its small arms out as it did so. With four cards in Yami's hand, the Saint Dragon had 3000 attack points and 3000 defense points, which made it far from the weakest monster on the field.

And all the while, Kaiba stood there, grinning.

"One of my Egyptian God cards is now on the field, and he alone will take out all your monsters," Yami assured Seto, who still had a wide grin on his face. "God of Osiris, attack!"

The Saint Dragon openned the larger of its two jaws and a ball of lightning energy built in its mouth, its large teeth surrounding it. Once built to its fullest potential, the lightning energy blasted right at Seto's Stone Ogre Grotto, exploding it to tiny pieces. Yami ended his turn afterwards.

Joey and Tristan screamed in excitement. Yugi seemed unbeatable at the moment. With an Egyptian God card on the field, and one that would get stronger by each card he drew, they had figured Yugi had the duel in the bag. They almost decided to prepare to leave already.

Mokuba was discouraged as he sat and watched his brothe duel horribly. He just couldn't understand why he had let Yugi get such a good lead on him so early. After an entire night of euphoria from his all around bad mooded brother, Mokuba was worried his brother had become happy for nothing. He continued to watch, looking at the monitors and the large television behind them, praying the best for Seto under his breath.

"Kaiba, I know you have taken me lightly this entire duel, but I assure you if you don't start dueling the way you know how, you will lose quite shamefully," Yami warned him. Seto did not seem to take it seriously.

"No, it will be you who will lose shamefully as you are humiliated by allowing the greatest come back ever seen," Kaiba laughed. "And you'll see what I mean starting...now. Reveal face down card: Obligatory Summon."

Yugy and Yami were really lost now, because now they could summon two monsters of the same type on the field, and the only other two monsters of the same type were the other two Egyptian God cards.

"You're telling me that you're come back starts by letting me summon my other two Egyptian God cards?" he asked.

"Just summon them and move on!"

"I shall, but it is by your own cause," he said, but Seto knew what he was doing. Yami took the first of the other two God cards out of his deck. "The God of Obelisk, come forth!"

The clouds returned to the ceiling and thunder cracked yet again. A blue-spotlight came from the clouds and touched the ground. A dark blue shadow appeared, shaping like a muscular giant with wings like a bat. As the spotlight faded, the God of Obelisk stood in its place, his fists clinched as he roared to the sky. With 4000 attack and defense points of his own, Obelisk stomped his large foot to the ground, showing his power was now present in battle, and Kaiba stared into the face of a beast that was once his.

"And finally, Ra, the Sun of God, show yourself!" Yami cried out as he placed the third Egyptian God card on the field of his duel disk.

Again, clouds shrouded the ceiling, thunder cracked, and a light flashed down to the ground like lightining. A yellow light burst this time, and an orange shadow appeared in its light. The light gave way to a large, four-taloned bird with shining golden wings. Ra screeched as its golden body glowed in the lights of the stadium. It had no attack or defense points, because no sacrifices were made, but with so many special abilities, it hardly needed them.

The three Egyptian Gods stood together again.

"You've allowed me to summon not only my strongest creatures, but the three most feared beasts in duel monsters. And you will be on the receiving end of their wrath!" threatened Yami, but Seto knew that Yugi's downfall would truly begin now.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

_Note: The Pyramid of Light card's name has been changed to Gods' Forsaken Tomb. The name Pyramid of Light for some reason bothered me, so I therefore changed it._

From the empty seats in the stadium, Joey and Tristan were howling and whistling for Yugi, thinking with all three Egyptian God cards on the field he had already won. It was true that with all three of the legendary beasts on the field, one would have probably automatically won just like they had collected all five pieces to Exodia: the Forbidden One. However, Yugi, Joey, and Tristan did not know that all of this had been a façade planned by Seto Kaiba.

"You're finished," Yami told Kaiba.

Kaiba could only stand and laugh. Yami raised an eyebrow to why he was doing so, considering he was about to lose the duel by his own hands.

"I had no idea you were so gullible," laughed Kaiba. "Yugi, watch as your reign as number one duelist is shattered!"

Kaiba seemed to only obfuscate Yami and Yugi more.

"Reveal: Gods' Forsaken Tomb, and watch the destruction of your God cards!" Kaiba called up his other face down card, which had three special abilities of its own, and one being to remove all Egyptian God cards from play.

Yami nor Yugi had never seen or heard of this card before, though he had some kind of memory of it. It had three powerful abilities, one Kaiba could not even use, but its true strength would be clear. A black ball of dark energy grew high above between the two duelists, small black lightning bolts sparking from it. When it had a large enough circumference, four, black shots of dark energy shot from it: three for each Egyptian God, and one for Yami's remaining face down card. Every single one of them, even Ra, Obelisk, and Osiris, cried out and were consumed away. Yami looked back to see his mighty cards destroyed and removed. He looked back up at the black ball, which did not get any smaller, as it shot four more energy lasers around them, forming a pyramid shape. Walls of black light began to form around them, trapping them inside. The ball of black energy became the top point of the black pyramid, and for the moment, nothing seemed to happen.

It was then that a dark presence knew it was time. It activated something in Yami Yugi's puzzle, something that had already been placed inside. The puzzle around Yami's neck glowed, but Yugi was not trying to switch with him. All of the sudden, a large, Egyptian Eye, the same as the one on each Millenium item, was formed on the outside of the pyramid that trapped Kaiba and Yami inside. Then Yami felt Yugi being pulled away from him. It was unexplainable, but he felt Yugi's spirit separate from his. Once he saw Yugi outside next to him, he knew that Yugi's spirit now inhabited a different body: his own, shorter, less developed body. Yami only saw him for a split second, because for reasons he did not know, a light from the puzzle shined onto Yugi, and his body was then sucked into the puzzle, disconnecting any communication with him. Yami only saw his friend yell as he was being absorbed into his puzzle. The puzzle then stopped.

"Holy..." Tristan and Joey said together.

On the outside, Tristan and Joey were unsure of what had just happened. The only thing they were aware of was the fact Yugi's Egyptian Gods had been removed from play. The seats extended all around the dueling field, so they tried running around it to see if they could see Yugi or Kaiba. They found they were unsuccessful, but saw a giant eye on one side of the pyramid. They looked into it for just a moment and felt their bodies being lifted into the air. Screaming for help, both tried to grab a nearby railing to stop them from moving. They failed miserably and found themselfs yelling at the top of their lungs as they were being sucked into the giant eye they had stared into.

Mokuba, sitting in the control room, had seen enough. He had witnessed Joey and Tristan disappear into the pyramid as well, and he could no longer see the duel. While he could still see it on the big screen television in the arena, the lighting was horrible, so he really could not see well. He jumped out of his spinning chair and ran down the stairs to the dueling field to try to figure out what the matter was.

Inside the black pyramid, Yami tried to see if he could see anything outside the pyramid, but realized he could not. That's when his puzzle glowed again. A light coming from the side of the pyramid which Kaiba stood in front of shined into his puzzle again. After a few moments, the light faded, and Seto and Yami stood inside the pyramid formed from Kaiba's card, seemingly alone.

And the evil presence would only have to wait until he was physically ready.

"Kaiba! Something has happened," Yami tried to explain to him, but Seto had already come to his own conclusions.

"Yes indeed. I just took out your God cards! Or was it your pyramid necklace's little dysfunction you were talking about?" Kaiba harassed. He had thought the puzzle was just glowing as a reaction to the forming of the pyramid.

"More than that," Yami again tried to explain.

"I don't want to hear it," Seto interrupted him. "You may be upset that I played a card that took down your Egyptian God cards, but by all means, continue dueling. Defeating you wouldn't be any where as fun."

Seto, whom had been quiet and timid for most of the duel, was becoming a vivacious character. With one card, Seto was able to turn the tables to his favor. Things were going just as he had planned.

"Kaiba, you must listen," Yami was trying to convince him something horrible was happening.

"No, you must," Seto argued. "I'm not going to end this duel. It's not my fault you fell into my trap and will now suffer its consequences. But you'll be suffering a lot more after you lose!" Yami tried to speak again but could barely get a word in. "Let this show you the humiliation of defeat, and I'll make sure you feel every single horrible part of it, because I plan to pick off every single piece of flesh that's left on your bones!"

Yami knew he would not be able to get through to Kaiba. He could not get him to stop the duel so he was left with no other choice but to continue. Yami and Yugi's feelings had been correct. Yugi was sucked into the puzzle and unable to talk with Yami, and him and Seto were locked inside a black pyramid with hardly any light, making every quite dark and difficult to see. What would be the worst part of it all was it was Seto's turn.

"My turn," Seto pointed out as he drew his card. He looked at it his big grin seemed to be super-glued to his face. "Well, well, you have no monsters on the field now."

Yami looked around to realize Seto was right. With his Egyptian Gods taken off the field and his one face down card destroyed, he had no other monsters to defend himself.

"Say hello to a new friend of mine: Peten the Dark Clown (500/1200)!" Seto put his new monster on the field. It had to be among one of Kaiba's creepier monsters. Much like a clown mixed with a mime, the masked clown waved to Yami at the other end of the field.

"Has your resentment of losing blinded you from seeing that something is not right here?" Yami was still attempting to let Kaiba know something had gone wrong, but Kaiba had no patience for it.

"Stop giving me your B.S. You're not going to fool me and back out of this duel," Seto assured. "Don't wuss out on me, Yugi, because then you wouldn't make me look as good."

Seto's monster withdrew its dagger from the sheath hanging on its belt on its right hip. He held it up to the left side of his face, reflecting half of Yami's face in the blade. The mysterious clown smiled and spun around, as if doing a dance move, and disappeared, yet the card remained on the field.

"What the..." Yami was puzzled by the clown's disappearance.

"Attack him...directly," Seto demanded, saying it so smoothly.

Yami's first instinct told him to turn around. He did so and there stood none other than Peten the Dark Clown, dagger in hand. Yami knew what was coming next, and he could do nothing to prevent it. Peten swung his arm back and jabbed it forward, stabbing Yami deeply in the left side his stomach. Yami howled in pain, feeling the real pain of a very real stab. Luckily the clown had horrid aim and only hit an area of the body less vulnerable to such an attack, but that had not changed the fact the wound he had dealt was real. Holding the dagger in place for a few moments, Peten ripped the dagger out of Yami's side and returned to his side of the field. Yami held his real stab wound, blood soaking his hand quickly and the pain was quite extreme. He had expected a similar attack, but had not foreseen the attack and wound being real and the pain so dreadful. Yami grunted as he turned to face Kaiba, the clown back on his side of the field, waving to him with his sanguine dagger, covered in Yami's blood.

"Seto..." Yami said weakly. Strangely enough, though he had been stabbed in only one part, his entire body had felt it had lost a load of energy and strength.

"Don't even try the chicken blood stunt on me," Kaiba assumed it was only a trick to get him to stop the duel. "Is this what you do? Do you put bags of chicken blood under your clothes so when you're attacked directly they break open and make it look like you're bleeding so they forfeit?"

"Never!" Yami denied. "I wouldn't..."

"Deny it now, after it's been done and been caught," Kaiba snarled, a bit ashamed of his opponent. "Your little prank won't end this duel. I place a card face down, and end my turn. Yugi, this is only the beginning, and if you're hurting now, you'll be hurting _much _more later."

His right hand holding both his duel disk and wound, Yami weakly drew his card to begin his turn. Even though still had 3500 Life Points, he would find he would slowly and painfully languish from there on.

Slowly, Yugi awoken, having felt he had just dove into and empty pool. He awoke in a dark, very complex and confusing area. There seemed to be stairs on both the ceiling and ground level. Everything seemed to be square and made of golden brick, yet it was dark and cool. Yugi knew he had been sucked into the Millenium Puzzle, though unclear to the answer of why he was. It did not really make sense for the card to be the catalyst of it, but it was the last thing that occurred before Yugi was sucked in.

Yugi stood up and called for anyone that may have been in there with him, only to hear an echo throughout the puzzle. He was not sure of what to do, but he was not too worried. He thought the pharaoh would find a way to get him out of there. Not sure of exactly what to do, Yugi groped around the puzzle, searching for any clues on how he ended up being in the puzzle. He had been in the puzzle once before, but was not all that familiar with anything inside. As he had seen his previous and only visit in the puzzle, there were several chambers, shut off with stoned doors, though all the chambers looked to be empty. With no other ideas on his mind, Yugi walked up several sets of stairs, opening the doors to any room he came across. He would open a room only to find nothing but blackness and emptiness. He was not getting anywhere into finding anything.

After looking in many rooms and climbing up and down many stairs, Yugi had become frustrated. He was tired of walking up and down stairs, and he had not been in the puzzle any longer than ten minutes. Climbing up yet another set of stairs, Yugi found but one door at the top, indicating it was only one room, and then the stairs lead back down the level he had just been on. Though he figured it would be pointless, Yugi opened the door to check for any evidence.

This room, it was different. It was a perfectly square room, as well as the only room with bright light. Candles dangled on the walls, and torches hung high on the farthest wall. Between them, in the exact center of the wall, was a small Egyptian Eye, its pupil shining purple and black. The hieroglyphics on the walls were easily noticeable, some looking quite familiar to Yugi at first glance. What could not go unnoticed were the many caskets lying on the ground, and there was one, large and fancy casket laying on a platform nearer to the farthest wall. He had never seen this room before, or so he thought. Fascinated, he swung the door open and took a few steps into the mysterious room.

"I have been waiting for you, Yugi," a dark voice echoed through the room. Yugi paused and looked around, seeing nothing more. The fact that caskets sat in there made him a fearful.

"W-who are you?" Yugi called out.

"It matters not," the deep voice told him, but no form of life was in the room. "You will be trapped here for eternity as shadows cover the earth. And 't will be because of you!"

Yugi became concerned, but confused. As far as he knew, he had not done anything harmful to the world.

"What have I done? Tell me who you are!" he demanded.

The voice laughed loudly.

"Assembling the puzzle," the voice said.

Yugi looked at the larger, golden casket and noticed it was shaped like a pharaoh's coffin would be. However, the head of the fancy coffin was in the shape of a jackal head. Normally, a human with a jackal head would represent the Egyptian God, but they lived in the heavens. Yugi thought for a second and then realized it was not an Egyptian God that was present, but the God powered imposter, Anubis.

She was running late as usual. Tea was running down the streets of the city along with Duke Devlin whom had decided to join her, trying to get to the Dueling Dome. She had only wanted to drop off her school stuff at home then leave right away, but she ended up eating some dinner and changing clothes before hand. Then she ran into Duke, who had stopped to talk to her for a bit and both decided to go watch the duel. Hoping the guys would not be upset that she was late to the duel, Tea looked at her watch every few seconds, freaking out about how many more seconds late she was going to be.

Not looking exactly which way she was running, she accidentally ran into a hobo running from the police. The hobo had done nothing wrong, according to him, but the police found his story about his body being controlled by another spirit unbelievable. Tea had just ruined his escape, and the two policemen grabbed the fleeing hobo and arrested him.

"I didn't do nothing!" the hobo pleaded.

"Yeah, you didn't do 'nothing', so you just confessed to doing something!" one of the policemen used the hobo's grammar against him. He snapped handcuffs on his scratched up hands and dragged him to the car.

"I didn't steal that dagger at my own will! I swear it! I was possessed!" yelled the hobo.

Annoyed, Tea signaled the police to hang on a second. The hobo thought that she had believed him until she started screaming at him.

"Do you know how much more late you've made me?" she hollered. "I'm supposed to be watching my friend duel right now, and I'm running late!"

Tea probably would have started slapping him had Duke not restrained her. The hobo sighed and cooperatively went in the police car. The police drove away as a limousine pulled up. The door opened and Tea saw a man she had wished never to see again.

"Good evening, Tea," Pegasus greeted her in a polite manner. Tea tried to walk away, but Pegasus grabbed her arm.

"Whoa, is that Maximillion Pegasus? It's been a while, man!" Duke cheerfully greeted Pegasus.

"Oh if it isn't Dukey," said Pegasus, though she did not believe a bit of him. "It really has been a while."

"Has it ever!" Pegasus was somewhat of a hero to Duke, or at least he had been once, so Duke was a bit pleased to see him again.

"Hey, remember that he was the creep that swiped Yugi's Grandpa's soul!" Tea reminded them. Duke lost his happy face and became more serious, though hiding his true emotions. "Come on, Duke. We've got to get to the Duel Dome!"

"I'm not here for little Yugi, but for Seto Kaiba," told Pegasus. "So you have nothing to fear of me."

"He's at the Dueling Dome with Yugi," said Tea. "We're going there right now, but unfortunately you weren't invited."

"What a shame. I suppose I will just have to crash the party," joked Pegasus. "Unless of course that party has wine."

"Look, I want nothing to do with you, so just leave me alone!" Tea stomped off.

"Oh sweetie, I'm not the cold man with the golden eye I once was," Pegasus tried to convince her. "Actually I'm a one-eyed romantic."

Pegasus began pulling the hair covering his left eye off of his face, wanting to show Tea his blind left eye, but Tea smacked his hand away, stopping him from doing so.

"Come now," he sighed. "We're both going to the same place, and it is not you or Yugi or any of your friends I have a problem with, so you are in no trouble with me."

Tea paused a moment.

"Besides, I'm powerless without my millenium eye. You know that. I'm just an old, pathetic, weak geezer without it," he confessed.

Though she was incredulous, Tea felt she could trust him this once. Besides, she was already pretty late, and any later then the guys might upset enough to eat her head off. She and Duke cautiously went to the other side of the limousine, opened the door and entered it. Pegasus and Tea shut their doors and Pegasus directed the driver to the Dueling Dome.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

So much blood was spilling from Yami that it was dripping out of his hand from between his fingers and at the ends. He had not expected this to happen, and it was not so much the pain from his wound that was hurting him, but shock was getting the best of him. How could this have happened? Why is this happening? These questions could not stop ringing in his mind. Worst of all, Seto did not believe he was truly injured, nor did he seem to care. He was going to continue with the duel regardless. Turn was to Yami, and he removed his bloody hand from his stab to continue to duel, much to his distress.

"I play Dark Valkyria (1300/1400) in attack mode," called out Yami in a much weaker tone than before. "Attack his clown!"

Dark Valkyria, looking much like the Dark Magician girl, swung her wand around and pointed it at the eccentric clown. She blasted a dark force of energy directly at the clown and the clown was destroyed. Kaiba's Life Points were down to 2000. Kaiba was about to call out his next move when he felt something quite odd and painful. His back began to feel numb, as if it had lost some strength. He started to crouch down and showed a face expressing some kind of pain, but quickly got back on his feet. Still in some pain, nothing could stop Seto's next move.

"Well, since you've attacked, I guess it would be a good time to reveal my face down card," Seto laughed, though still hurting. Yami noticed Seto's expression from a moment ago, and knew something was wrong. "Deck Destruction Virus!"

The trap card on the field was lifted and a large, gooey hand reached out and zapped Yami's deck. Sparks flew from his deck and the top ten cards on top of his deck were removed. He was well aware of this continuous trap card: it would take ten cards out of his deck every turn. It was unfortunate, because just from the first loss of cards he lost all three magnet warriors and a few effective trap and magic cards.

"You're losing it, Yugi," Seto taunted him. "You're losing ten cards every turn, you're losing Life Points, what could be worse at a time like this?"

Yami was undoubtedly hurting, but he wished to show no signs of weakness to Kaiba. He ended his turn, but again placed his right hand over his wound again. The bleeding continued and did not look like it was going to get any better without medical attention.

"Seto, I saw you, when you lost Life Points, you felt pain, didn't you?" argued Yami. "Don't think I didn't notice."

Seto was surprised he noticed, but felt as if he could show no pain in this duel. His back was still hurting, but he simply laughed it off.

"Do not be so ridiculous," he told him. "Maybe I did, but don't think that's going to stop me from defeating you. A little bit of pain isn't that bad for anyone."

Seto began his turn. Everything was going as he had planned. He continued to draw the right cards, and his strategy was going as he had laid it out.

"I'll summon Hitotsu-Me Giant (1200/1000) in defense mode and place one card face down," Kaiba sighed, wanting to move along.

"Fine," mumbled Yami as he drew his card. "Attack, Dark Valkyria!"

Dark Valkyria went to attack, but Seto had activated his trap card, Castle Walls, right after he demanded so. Castle Walls gave the Giant an additional 500 defense points for one turn, long enough to cancel out Dark Valkyria's attack. Yami growled in frustration as he ended his turn.

"It's just like I stated, Yugi. You're losing it, 'cause watch as you lose more of your Life Points," commented Seto after drawing his card. "Servant of Catabolism (700/500), attack him directly!"

It happened so quickly that Yami wasn't even sure what this monster was. A snail like critter appeared and lunged its body forward. It's thick body crashed into Yami's, knocking out not only seven hundred more Life Points, but possibly breaking a few ribs in the process. With its special ability, Yami's Life Points crashed to 2800, and his already wounded body crashed to the ground. The attack inflicted much more physical damage than expected. Again, the attack from the monster didn't just hurt the area it hit, but his entire body had felt like it had lost life. More blood squirted from the wound as Yami barely stood back on his feet, his breathing becoming heavy.

It had occurred to him then that the loss of Life Points meant the loss of life. Strength was descending within him, and he felt as if all his bones were going to collapse and shatter. He had not felt this kind of pain before, at least as far as he could remember.

"This creature is puny compared to the other monsters I have in my deck, so if you can't handle this thing, wait until my Blue-Eyes gets on the field, and I assure you it will come," Kaiba explained as he placed another card face down. He switched his Hitotsu-Me Giant to attack mode, and ended his turn.

If the duel was going to continue at the rate it was going, Yami would not be able to continue much longer. His mind desperately ran through ideas that could end the duel as quickly as possible. With his body vanquishing by the minute, or by the loss of Life Points, he felt he would not be around much longer to see the end of the duel, no matter what the outcome was. He drew his card to begin his turn, which was one of no use at that time. He figured if Kaiba was going to attempt to summon his Blue-Eyes White Dragon next turn, he had better have another monster to defend himself.

"I will summon Gazelle, the King of Mythical Beasts (1500/1700) in Defense," Yami made his move and proceeded to attack with Dark Valkyria. "Dark Valkyria, attack Hitotsu-Me Giant now!"

Dark Valkyria lifted her wand in preparation for attacking again, but Seto shook his head.

"Not quite," he stopped the attack. "I'll use my magic card: Malevolent Nuzzle! And now my Hitotsu-Me Giant gains 700 attack points, making 600 points stronger than your Dark Valkyria! You've called your attack, and now you'll pay for it!"

A large axe appeared in the hands of his green giant. Its attack points rose to 1900 as it leaped into the air, holding the axe above its head. When in striking range, Hitotsu-Me Giant swung down the axe, hitting Dark Valkyria directly. Dark Valkyria was then destroyed as Yami lost six hundred more Life Points, leaving him with 2200. Again, he felt a great loss of energy and strength. His sight worsened and breathing became heavier. He bent over, using the hand not holding his stab wound to hold him up on his knee. His turn had not been over yet.

"Oops, I almost forgot, ten more of those cards go to the graveyard," cried Seto as the gooey hand returned to zap ten more cards from Yami's deck to the graveyard. Summoned Skull and Buster Blader were among the heavy losses this round. "Are you done now?"

He nodded his head. He had a monster in Defense Mode on the field, so his Life Points would be protected for the moment. Losing Life Points was unaffordable for Yami, who was on the verge of collapsing.

Though not in his best physical shape, Seto could not have felt better. He drew yet another card that played perfectly into his strategy. Soon his ultimate beast would come to the field. As long as he kept drawing the right cards, he would easily be able to summon it.

"It's time to bring a piece of my great beast to the field," warned Kaiba. "I play White Dragon Ritual!"

A knight in white armor came to the field from the activation of the magic card. The warrior raised his sword high and a sky of swirling dark clouds soared above Kaiba's side of the field. The two monsters Seto had played were sacrificed, being consumed into the sky as lightning struck. The knight leaped into the air and disappeared for a moment. He would return to the field not long after, only this time riding a dragon that looked similar to a Blue-Eyes White dragon, only smaller and with duller claws.

"Meet the Paladin of White Dragon!" Seto said. "Too bad he isn't going to stick around for very long, because now I use it as a sacrifice for my Blue-Eyes White Dragon."

The Paladin of White Dragon had a special ability that let him sacrifice it to summon one Blue-Eyes White Dragon to the field. The Dragon taming warrior disappeared as a stronger Blue-Eyes (3000/2500) appeared into battle in attack mode.

"Beautiful, isn't he?" Kaiba adored his dragon. "Looks are quite deceiving these days. Blue-Eyes, attack!"

A white ball of negatively charged energy grew in its mouth. A stream emerged from the ball once it was taking up most of the space in the dragon's mouth. The stream of dangerously powerful energy hit Yami's Gazelle, blowing it up right as it hit. While it was not on the top list of his concerns at that time, Yami had no monsters on the field, which meant he was open to a direct attack next turn that would wipe out his Life Points.

"You don't seem to be saying much," Seto noticed. "Are you just in a state of shock as you stare into defeat?"

Kaiba's confidence had grown to the maximum. With everything going accordingly, he thought he was unstoppable, and nothing could save Yugi from such a situation. He placed a card face down, one in which he would use soon as long as he could draw his third Blue-Eyes White Dragon from his deck next turn. Yami remained silent as he begun his turn. He had drawn a monster card to protect his Life Points, but his situation seemed to remain helpless.

"I summon another Dark Valkyria in Defense Mode," Yami called out his move. He could do nothing else but play defense until he could think of a strategy. "I'll end my turn"

"It's not over yet. Deck Destruction virus!" Seto reminded him of his continuous trap card. The virus took yet another ten cards from his deck, this time he lost his Dark Magician Girl. "Now it's over."

Seto was almost positive he would draw his final Blue-Eyes this turn. He already had one Blue-Eyes in his hand, which he could have easily summoned by sacrificing his giant and Servant of Catabolism, but decided to summon the Paladin to take one from his deck instead so that he would not have to wait to summon his fused Blue-Eyes White Dragon. He pulled the card atop his deck and looked at it. It truly had been his lucky day. He now had two Blue-Eyes White Dragons in his hand and one on the field. Now he would be moments away from summoning his fused Blue-Eyes.

"It's amazing. I have no belief in the heart of the cards, yet here I have the precise cards I need in my hand," mentioned Seto. "Reveal face down card: Polymerization!"

He revealed the other two Blue-Eyes White Dragons in his hand. All three Blue-Eyes appeared on the field. The three dragons flashed into a bright light and the three lights shaped in the shape of a White Dragon came together. A massive body became of the three Blue-Eyes as three heads emerged from the top. The fusion was complete. What now stood on the field was the obscenely powerful Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500/3000). Yami was too familiar with the strength of this beast.

"As I'd thought, your ultimate beast, the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, is the supposed key to my defeat," Yami grumbled. "I'm assuming you know that I've defeated this beast on several occasions."

"Maybe so, but don't underestimate him and his 4500 attack points!" Seto said as he played another card. "I'll use the Magic Card, Quick Attack, so you don't have to wait to feel the power of my Ultimate Dragon! Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, attack!"

With no traps, magic, or spells placed on the field, Yami was practically defenseless with his Dark Valkyria on the field. All three Blue-Eyes heads shot a blast of white, negatively charged energy at his only monster. The Spellcaster-type monster was destroyed at first hit.

"There goes your only monster, and just wait until next turn, when my Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon aims for _you_!" warned Kaiba, almost promising Yami his Life Points would be gone by his next turn. He signaled the end of his turn.

Yami continued the duel, though hardly by his own will. He drew a card and suddenly had an idea to destroy Kaiba's Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. He looked at his card, contemplating whether he should play it or not, fearing Kaiba could end up in a worse condition that he was in. He had no choice, especially when his Life Points seemed to be decreasing by the turn and his chances of winning becoming slimmer. With all the cards he needed in his hand, Yami began putting his plan into action.

It seemed as if they had been asleep for hours, but they had only been knocked out for a few minutes. Tristan and Joey arose from the stone hard ground, rubbing their heads. They looked around the dark puzzle, unsure of where they were or what had just happened.

"I swear I hate eyes!" Joey complained. "First we had Pegasus' Millennium Eye to be afraid of, and that Marik creep, or at least his evil side, who had eyes that made him look like he was always stoned. And now we get sucked into wherever the hell we are now because of some giant eye!"

"I'm not gonna disagree," Tristan concurred. Him and Joey had never been in the puzzle before, so it didn't look at all familiar. "Have any idea where we might be?"  
"Hell if I know. God it looks like someone was trying to make this place as confusing as possible. Just look at it. So complex, oddly shaped, stairs all over the place, who would make something like this, and how?"

Looking up, they noticed the ceiling was longer than the floor they were on. It seemed to get narrower the farther down it went. While it was harder to tell from the inside, this dark chamber looked like an upside-down pyramid, though neither of them recognized it.

"This place creeps me out!" Tristan screamed.

"You're telling me. I've never seen a place with so many doors. Someone's gotta be in here though. We can't be alone."

"I guess we got no choice but to look around."

Randomly, the duo walked up and down stairway after stairway in search of Yugi or anything they could find.

"What do you want from me?" Yugi yelled to who he thought to be Anubis.

"It is not you I desire, but you were in my way, so therefore I had to dispose of you somehow," he summarized. "But I believe I have told you far too much already."

The caskets scattered around the room began to open on their own. The tops of the coffins fell off and wrapped corpses began rising from the inside. Each undead body sat up slowly, moaning as they began standing. These living dead fiends were mummies!

"Devour him," demanded the voice of the mummies.

Yugi knew he was in trouble, especially when the mummies began waddling their way towards him. Yet he wished not to leave just yet. At the same time, the larger fancier coffin resting in the back of the room on the platform began to open. Not paying attention to the mummies at all, Yugi watched as a big hand crept out from the gold coffin, grabbing the side of the coffin. The other hand came out of the coffin, and both pulled up the body inside. The sight of such a body was quite grotesque! The male body was wide, yet the skin was all wrinkly and dirty. It looked muscular for an old rotting corpse, the arms and legs rather wide. The dirty, knotty hair hung from his head, and his eyes were blood-shot red. He grinned at Yugi, showing his rotting yellow teeth and evil smile. As disturbing as the body looked already, it looked as if its looks and health were improving. The skin color was cleaning, his hair slightly detangling, and muscles regaining strength. As the body went through what looked like a revival process, Yugi noticed the eye hanging on the back wall glowing brightly with a red light. The reflection of the light shined on the rebuilding body, which continued to improve to its old physique.

A bony hand grabbed Yugi by the arm, trying to drag him down from the doorway. Yugi finally stopped watching the rise of an old body, which suddenly had a look as if he had no soul and the red light from the eye stopped glowing. The voice had stopped whispering in the atmosphere as the mummies crowded their way towards Yugi. With nothing better to do, Yugi dashed out of the room and down the stairs that he came from. The slower mummies followed him, coming in a pack of at least thirty of them. Hoping they were no where near him, Yugi continuously looked back as he continued to run forward, even up and down stairs and around sharp corners. On several occasions, he almost tripped or fell, which helped the mummies catch up to him.

When he was looking back, Yugi smacked right into Joey and Tristan, knocking them over. Normally, Joey would have been upset to have someone run into him and knock him down, but since it was Yugi, he found it quite a relief. Tristan and Joey had been looking for someone for what seemed like hours.

"Yugi!" exclaimed Joey, helping him up. Yugi looked behind him to see the mummies were gone. He panted hard, leaning against a nearby wall.

"What were you scampering away from so quickly?" Tristan asked him. "And what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be dueling or something?"

Yugi did not want to answer questions he did not even know the answer to. He said nothing as a reply and kept looking back in the direction where he last saw the mummies chasing him.

"Anyone there?" Joey waved his hand in front of Yugi's face.

"Oh, sorry," he apologized for his lack of attention. "How did you guys get in here?"

"An eye, what else?" whined Joey. "We saw that pyramid thing go around the dueling field, so we ran to another side of it trying to see if we could look in. And we run to this side with this giant eye on it, and the next thing we knew we were being sucked in. And that's about all I remember."

"Have any ideas on where we might be right now?" Tristan asked.

"Yeah, my Millennium Puzzle," told Yugi. "I've been here before, and this is definitely it. No one could make a building this complex."

Joey and Tristan scratched their heads, but believed him.

"Listen, we have to go back there," Yugi said, though Joey and Tristan had no idea where he was talking about.

"Back where?" they asked.

"I found this room with a whole bunch of caskets and hieroglyphics in it," began Yugi. "It was weird, because there was this one coffin where it was like a pharaoh's coffin, designed specially and everything. And then some body started rising out of it, but I swear that I think it was lifeless for a time. It was as if it were being brought back to life. And there was this voice..."

He fell silent.

"This voice, whispering to me, accusing me for the one being responsible for everything that's happening," he continued, but talked more softly and slower. "And then he demanded mummies to kill me. That's what I was running from."  
"Whoa, you're sayin' there's actually an unvacant room in this joint?" Joey asked. "Where?"

Yugi pointed back to the direction he came from before running into them.

"It was that way and up a few stairways. It's not hard to miss, 'cause it's the only one with light shining from it, and it's the only room on top of the staircase," he explained. "I remember most of the way, so we should be able to find it."

"But there's mummies!" Tristan reminded them. "I don't wanna go near them living dead dead guys."

Tristan backed away and Joey went to join him. Fearing the worst, neither of them wanted to go anywhere near that room. Yugi sighed and began walking on his own back to the room he came from.

"Yug, you're not really goin' back, are you?" Joey cried to him.

"I am," he said with confidence in his voice. "For one thing, whatever's going on in there is probably the cause of all this. And if we want to get out of here, we don't have a choice but to go back. Most importantly, if I really am responsible for all this, then I have to deal with it."

Yugi walked on his own, away from his friends. He thought that he would be doing this alone, but not long after, Joey and Tristan accompanied him. They definitely did not want Yugi going on his own if it were perilous. In such a time, they would not abandon their friend. Yugi smiled at them as the three walked back to the nonvacant chamber, where they hoped to find answers.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

With the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon on the field, Seto was almost ready to claim victory over Yami. Packed with 4500 attack points, it could easily destroy any monster that Yami had in his deck. At least, all but one, as Kaiba would find out.

"You're dragon is everything but immortal," said Yami. "And I know just how to show you why that's so."

Kaiba raised an eyebrow.

"You're kidding," he laughed. "My dragon will rip any monster you have to shreds! Face it, you've already lost it!"

"Not quite."

He was still very weak, but he had the strength to continue on. He would begin his process of destroying Kaiba's Blue-Eyes by activating a magic card.

"Monster Reborn," he called out. "And I will bring back Dark Magician Girl (2100/1900). And now I can automatically summon my Dark Magician (2500/2000)."

He took his favorite card from his deck and placed it on the field. The Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl on the field at the same time was already a deadly duo, but neither had the strength that compared to the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

"That accomplished nothing," Seto sighed.

"But watch as I sacrifice them both so I can summon the monster that will slay your dragon," Yami finally started to grin, knowing he was about to bring down Kaiba's great beast. "By sacrificing them, I can summon the Sorceror of Dark Magic (3200/2500)."

Seto looked at Yami's new monster and laughed, seeing how it still did not have the strength to take down the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. His laughter came to an immediate stop once he saw his Blue-Eyes' attack going down. It dropped a good 2000 points, making its attack points only 2500, weaker than the 3200 attack points of Yami's Sorceror. Confused and enraged, Seto demanded an explanation.

"With his special ability, Sorceror of Dark Magic can weaken your monster's attack points by 500 for every Spellcaster-type monster in my graveyard. With two Darky Valkyrias, Dark Magician, and Dark Magician Girl in the Graveyard, your dragon loses 2000 attack points," he explained briefly. Seto stood in shock, seeing how his strategy was almost destroyed in just one turn. "Sorceror of Dark Magic, attack!"

The Sorceror's thick, tall wand pointed at the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and a wide stream of dark energy blasted from the bulb at the end of wand. It blasted into the Blue-Eyes, and it was then destroyed. Seto's Life Points dropped to 1300 as he stood straight up, quite upset his mighty beast had gone. Worst of all, Seto again felt weaker than before. It came quite suddenly, but his entire body seemed to lose energy and strength. His sight became blurrier, and he grew a mind-splitting headache.

"You have lost strength, haven't you?" pointed out Yami.

"No! I haven't! I'm fine!" he yelled, but that did not make him feel better. He was more hurt by the fact that his great beast had been destroyed and that he may not be able to defeat Yami the way he had wanted to. He could defeat him another way: his trap card Deck Destruction Virus, which would destroy the rest of Yami's deck. As much as he despised defeating him this way, Seto would still at least win this way.

"Negate the trap!" Yami was already aware of the trap card and called to the Sorceror to destroy it. With its second special ability, the Sorceror of Dark Magic could negate the effect any magic, trap, or spell card on the field. The trap card on the field was blasted in half and then destroyed, its effect no longer taking place.

"You," Seto, feeling worse, growled.

"I end my turn," Yami concluded. His left hand was put back over his wound, but it did not bother him as much for he had just gained much confidence. Yet he was in no physical shape to do much.

Seto was mindless. He did not know what to do at this point. Somehow, Yugi had found a way to get out of a mess and pull away with a probable victory, as he had done so many times before. He could use Monster Reborn to bring back his Ultimate Dragon, but the Sorceror would just weaken it again. Frustrated and in some pain, Kaiba drew his card to begin his turn. His heart stopped. He had almost forgotten about this card. The tides would turn to his favor once again.

"You think you have me beat now?" he laughed weakly. "Your Sorceror is strong, but it does not compare to what I have in my hand. Watch and learn."

Seto played Monster Reborn, just as Yami had done a turn ago, bringing back his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Yami thought Seto was insane to do this, knowing the effects of his Sorceror, but with that kind of grin on Seto's face, the move was obviously intended.

"You'll like my new monster. Its beauty and power shines through everything, including your Sorceror," he stated. "I sacrifice my Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"

Yami was completely lost now. Seto, who had loved to use his Blue-Eyes to defeat his opponents with, just sacrificed it for a different monster, one he assumed did not compare in power to Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

"And now I can summon the card that has your defeat all of over it: Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon!"

Inside the pyramid, it was dark and the light was dim, but when this monster emerged from the card, it brought light to it. Its skin shined with a beautiful silver and white color. It spread its large wings like an eagle that had just taken flight in the air. For a few moments, it floated in the air, twirling about and crying its smooth call. It softly landed back on the ground on its two long legs, its thick tail whipping behind it. Never before had Yami heard of or seen such a creature or card. Taller than both the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon packed 3000 attack points and 2500 defense points, similar to a normal Blue-Eyes, but it held its own powerful weapons and effects. Judging it by only its attack and defense points, Yami would be decieved by its lower attack points to that of the Ultimate Dragon Seto had just sacrificed.

"You sacrificed a better monster than what you have summoned. Now you will lose the remainder of your Life Points once my Sorceror's effect takes place!" Yami told him, figuring that the Sorceror of Dark magic would be able to defeat it with one shot. The Sorceror raised his wand, signalling to decrease the attack points of his foe. He stood tacit after seeing the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon's attack points not drop, but increase to 5100.

"There is no mistake," Seto laughed, seeing the shock on Yami's face. "There's a very good explanation for why my dragon's attack rose rather than fall. For one thing, the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon can negate any special effect of any trap, magic, spell, or monster cards that desgnates it. So your Sorceror's effect would have no affect on it anyways. And to top it off, it gains 300 attack points for every dragon type monster in my graveyard."

There were seven dragons total in Seto's graveyard. All three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Rare Metal Dragon, Dragon Dwelling in the Cave, and Paladin of White Dragon were all in his graveyard. Rare Metal Dragon and Dragon Dwelling in the cave were the more unnoticable ones as they had been destroyed earlier in duel. Seven dragons in the graveyard meant 2100 attack points were added to the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon's 3000 original attack points.

"I told you I've managed to come up with the perfect strategy," he said. "And I'd be lying if said that this new card wasn't part of it."

Yami looked blankly to other end of the field at this new, nearly unbeatable card in disbelief. With 5100 attack points and the vulnerability to the effects of magic, trap, spell or monster cards, it was almost unbeatable. It was still Kaiba's turn and there was no doubt that he would attack. There was nothing he could do to embrace himself for the great loss of Life Points and possible life health. He was in bad enough shape as it was, and losing 1900 Life Points could do more than increase the severity of his condition. It was among the first times he had feared pain before.

"Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, attack now!" Seto ordered. The Blue-Eyes opened its gaping jaws and energy composed of an unknown, yet unbelievably powerful force began to build. Strengthening much faster than any other attack, the force of energy exploded out of its mouth and hit the Sorceror of Dark Magic head on. The Sorceror had been blown to shreds as was 1900 of Yami's Life Points. The explosion was so great that smoke shrouded in the pyramid, making everything almost invisible, even with the light from the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon lighting the room.

Right when the attack struck his monster and he lost Life Points, strength fell out of Yami immediately. It was as if he felt all of his muscles rip and bones crack. The wound on his left side shot out more blood, some of it splattering on the field. Where the Servant of Catabolism had hit him was now a bruise that was more annoyingly painful that a mosquito bite. Every function a normal body would be able to perform was near impossible for Yami. He had lost the strength to stand, falling to the ground and remained lying on the ground on his stomach, his left hand no longer covering his stab. He tried to lift his head to see if he could see Seto, but his eyesight had become so poor and the room was dark and smoky that he could hardly see anything. Adding on to that, it was painful to his neck to hold his head up. It was worse physical pain that he had ever endured, and he was somehow still alive.

"You have but 300 Life Points remaining while I have 1300," Seto reported the Life Point comparison. He also could not see his opponent lying helplessly on the ground. "You're through."

The tires from a car squeeled outside the Dome, and Tea swung the limousine door open, nearly breaking it off. Worrying less about Pegasus and Duke, who seemed to be garrulous couple for such a short ride, Tea made her way quickly into the building and onto the arena. She had meant to go to the stands, where she was supposed to go, but she had never been in the building before and therefore went down the first hallway she saw. A bit of ways behind, Duke and Pegasus chased after her.

Almost running right into the black pyramid on the field, Tea came to an immediate holt. Duke and Pegasus walked into to stay Tea looking up at the random pyramid. They too became inquisitive on what precisely it was and why it was there.

"Never seen this before," noted Duke. "You think some kind of card caused this?"

"Had to. There's no other explanation," said Tea.

"But I do not recall of card being made that could cause such a thing," sighed Pegasus. "What the hell is this thing?"

Like a child wanting to go pet a wild animal, Pegasus slowly approached it and went to place a finger on it, but Duke pulled him away.

"Whoa, do you think Kaiba and Yugi are inside of that thing?" Tea exclaimed in fear.

Just then, Mokuba ran up to them. He had been alone for a bit, worrying about Seto and Yugi trapped in the pyramid. Mokuba had groped around the pyramid and tried playing with the mechanics, but nothing seemed to be working. The large television that was supposed to show the duel had gone black, and he even tried deactivating the holograms.

"Tea!" Mokuba cried for her. "I'm so glad you're here!"

"What's going on?" Tea asked first, not giving him the proper greeting.

"I don't know if it's the mechanics or whatever, but something is definitely wrong," he began, though it was difficult to explain what had happened. "Seto played some kind of card called Gods' Forsaken Tomb, and then before I knew it, Seto and Yugi were trapped in that pyramid that's on the field. Joey and Tristan ran around to see if they could peak into it, but then they disappeared. So then I started looking around here, but I haven't been able to find anything. The mechanics aren't disabling anything either."

"Gods Forsaken Tomb? I've never heard of that card before. As far as I know, I don't even think it was ever made," Pegasus, acting as if he were omniscient about every card made, stated.

"How could you possibly know, you snake? You're always too drunk to know these kind of things," Mokuba insulted. He still had a strong feeling that opposed Pegasus since Duelist Kingdom.

"Sheesh, with that attitude, a donkey with its head up its ass could tell that you were Seto's brother," Pegasus said, being mordant. "Besides, who gave you the idiotic idea that I get drunk?"

"Seto saw you when he went to your house, and he tells me that you have quite the feminine side," he laughed. Pegasus had been unaware that Seto saw him in such an ugly state of mind, but then concluded that he did steal the card he had come for that day.

Pegasus and Mokuba had been too busy arguing and Duke was distracted by the humor of it all that no one noticed Tea walk away. She wanted to find a way in there, or at least find something that would let her see inside. Now she felt even more guilty that she had been late. Something obviously had happened and she had not been there to prevent it.

It seemed to take them forever to retrace his steps back to the odd room, but Yugi eventually lead himself, Joey, and Tristan back to their destination. The mummies seemed to be gone, so they were left alone with the body that had been in the process of revival. The eye hanging on the wall behind it glowed with a red light again, and the body began to recover health and strength. The eye seemed to shine red for a long time until the light finally faded, but the body seemed to have been completely healed. It no longer looked old and dead, but healthy and reborn into its strongest physique. The body still looked as if it had no soul, but in the hands of the male body was a crystal pyramid with a black marble in the middle of it.

"Oh man, that guy's gotta be on steroids," commented Joey of the man's overly large muscles.

The man turned his head to them. He looked like he was suffering from a severe case of amnesia, confused and unaware. The pupils in his eyes seemed to be looking upward, like he was dead tired. He seemed to have no life in him, though his body was functioning.

"He doesn't have a soul in him," Yugi knew right away that the body did not possess a soul. He had remembered what a man with no soul looked like, and was able to recognize it this time around.

"Well, I'd say he looks like he's just on something, but knowing the strange crap that's been going on, you're probably right," agreed Tristan.

There was a brief flash that came from the man's eyes. The look on the man's face suddenly went from exhausted looking to wildly heinous. Luckily wearing pants and a long cape, he stood up from his coffin and put the crystal pyramid, attached to a string, around his neck. Looking like he was some kind of psychopath, the man stared down at all three of them, particularly Yugi.

"Whoa, man, did that guy just wake up from hibernation or something?" Joey's sarcasm continued, though the timing could not have been much more inappropriate.

"A five thousand year slumber would better suit this situation," the man spoke. He, like Yami, had a deep voice, though it was less raspy but more dark.

Speechless, the three of them watched him step out of his coffin and off the platform. The man's big feet were bear foot, but it did not make him look any shorter. He crossed his arms and stood before them, somewhat laughing under his breath.

"Hulk Hogan?" Joey couldn't help but ask, because the man did somewhat represent the same phsyique as the world famous wrestler, only taller and he lacked facial hair.

"You," his big finger pointed at Yugi. Though intimidated, Yugi took a step forward. "I want to thank you."

"For what?" Yugi asked in a harsh tone, unsure of what he had done to help the man.

"For setting me free," the man smiled. "And letting me return so I can complete my desired goals. Not many people get another opportunity to do what they wish once they have disintegrated, but you have granted me my second chance. For that I thank you."

"What do you mean?" Yugi and the man spoke back and forth. "Don't think I'm not aware of who you are, Anubis."

"So you do know who I am," he applauded. "Congratulations for knowing as much as you do. That is more than any other pathetic living being would be able to figure out."

"Enough with the sarcasm. What did I do to release you?"

Anubis pointed his finger all around the room.

"Look at this masterpiece you have constructed. It really is a wonderful puzzle, but it would never have be my home of choice to live in for five thousand years. We cannot always get what we want, though. Besides, I should not be the one to complain, for if it had not been for this place, I would never have returned."

He understood now. Anubis' soul had rested in the puzzle for years, along with Yami. And once the puzzle had been assembled, his soul had been released while Yami's remained in the puzzle to unite him and Yugi's spirits.

"Funny how I never ran into the pharaoh once as long as I was here," mentioned Anubis. "Oh wait, could that be because that was how it was intended? Oh yes, it was only the start to a marvelous plot that I would begin to build."

"You want to destroy the world again," Yugi could read Anubis' intentions. "That's your desired goal!"

"'T would be only one. When I was sealed into this puzzle, my single goal grew into two."

"And what would your second one be?"

"Backlash," he snarled. "And I must say, I am doing a remarkable job so far."

The black marble began shining a dim, black light. The light shined onto a wall nearby, and the wall turned into a large screen-like picture. It was like an outdoor theatre, but the showing was worse than any movie. They were only quick flashes, but the marble played the abuse Yami had been taking from the duel, starting with the destruction of the Egyptian God cards. Everything, from the stab to the direct attack from Servant of Catabolism, was shown, and the last thing shown was Yami lying in a puddle of his own blood. The image disappeared after that, but it had been enough for them to see.

Yugi became enraged.

"You bastard!" he cursed, which was quite the rare occasion. "What are you doing to him?"

"Merely stepping closer to achieving one of my goals," Anubis smiled as he played with the crystal pyramid around his neck. "And technically, I am doing nothing as Seto Kaiba duels on, sucking the life out of your pharaoh friend."

Things were beginning to fit into place now. This duel had been set up completely by Anubis, and even Seto had been fooled by this trickery. Everyone had been decieved, and now it seemed that they would be stuck in the puzzle so they could be stopped from preventing anything.

"Do not be too upset. I will need to thank my old friend, for if it were not for his life energy, I would not obtained the health for my body to function properly and normally again. Kaiba, too, for that matter."

Yugi grinded his teeth.

"Yet really, I owe it all to you, mortal. You liberated my soul from this place and let me to set the stage as perfectly as it is. I just thought I would tell you that before I were to take my leave."

Behind him, the mummies rose from their coffins again. They had not been gone afterall, and were returning to fill out their master's order from before.

"I will leave you with some of my greatest friends. I have other wishes of my own to carry out right now, so I shall be gone. Keep in mind that I am always watching you."

He pointed to the eye hanging on the wall behind him. The pupil turned green, which indicated that Anubis would be able to watch them inside the puzzle within his mind. His own magic allowed him to do so.

"And remember, mortal, it was all because of you," Anubis winked at him as his body began sinking in a puddle of blood. As if he were in quick sand, his body lowered into the red liquid and disappeared once his entire body had sunk in. When he was no longer visible, the puddle of blood dried up on the ground and was no longer there. The mummies, faster than before, dashed after the three of them. Tristan and Joey readied themselves for a fight they knew they could not win, as Yugi stood in front of them, feeling isolated from everything else. He was aware of his surroundings, but cared less at the moment. He was too upset with himself to care, for he felt he was the one responsible for it all.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The pyramid composed of dark magic stood in the center of the field with no where to enter, as Tea realized as she wandered around it. She could see nor hear anything coming from it, and clearly there was no way to dig into it. With Mokuba and Pegasus still at each other's throats and Duke amused by the argument, Tea seemed to be alone in finding what the matter was.

"Rotten kid!" Pegasus called him.

"Loser!" Mokuba returned the insult.

"Idiotic bug!"

"Fatuous lunatic!"

"Fatuous?"

"It means unconsciously foolish. Sheesh, you're way older than I am, and yet your vocabulary is pathetic!

"Are you calling me old?"

"I don't know, Gramps! What do you think?"

Duke was rolling on the ground laughing as the two continued to exchange insults. Tea, though not paying attention, heard most of the argument because of their screaming. She was not concerned with it too much however.

She was on the opposite side of the pyramid where the others were, when she looked up and saw a giant eye hanging on it. It was something she had not noticed before, so she looked at it closely. The pupil glowed with dark colors, such as black, purple, navy blue, and gray. At first, the movement of dark colors was all that Tea saw, so when her reflection suddenly appeared in the pupil, she couldn't help but jump a bit. After she saw her reflection in the pupil and nothing occurred, she turned around to walk away. She then felt her body being lifted in the air and being pulled back. She turned her head to see herself being sucked into the eye. Desperately, she flailed her body around, trying to make it stop. There was nothing she could grasp to prevent her from being sucked in.

"Eeeeeeeek!" she cried for help. She was able to get the attention of Duke, Mokuba and Pegasus and they ran to her cry, but it had been too late. There was nothing they could have done to save her. Her body was too high and out of their reach. They could only watch her body as it was pulled into the eye and disappear.

In the hall where Tea and company entered the dueling arena, Bakura, the dark spirit that inhabited his body present at the time, stood and observed them arguing and searching around the black pyramid. He had seen Tea in the city, and knew immediately she had been off to meet with Yugi, whom had the Millennium Puzzle. He had been hunting the Millennium Items for quite some time, and he was well aware that Yugi possessed several of them, especially after Battle City.

Over hearing their conversation with Mokuba, Yami Bakura thought for a moment and remembered this same tactic, trapping his enemy inside a black pyramid, being used once before. The name of the one who used it was not in his memory, but he could at least recall it. Thinking of the idea of working with this enemy, he decided to stick around to see what may be in store.

The smoke cleared as Seto stood proudly on his side of the field. His long rival was on the verge of losing the duel. With thirteen hundred Life Points and Yami's at a measly three hundred, Seto could easily defeat him at almost any time he wished. He had already planned on how he wanted to beat him however. Turning his own magical beasts against his opponent would surely make a wonderful closure.

"Get up!" he demanded, seeing Yami lying on the ground. Yami attempted to stand but could not and he kept falling every time he tried.

"Seto," said Yami weakly, lifting his head from the ground.

"Let me guess: You want me to stop this duel," he mocked. "No! I have you right where I want you, and I'm just moments away from victory! I'll enjoy the moment for as long as I can, and when the time is right, I will finish this duel."

As badly hurt as he was, Yami calmly lied on the ground and continued to duel. If he were to surrender, his Life Points would drop to zero, and couldn't risk losing them. Assuming the worst would happen, Yami began his turn. He had nothing in his hand that would defeat Kaiba's dragon, so he was stuck playing defense to protect his Life Points.

"Big Shield Guardnaut (300/2000) in defense mode," he said, almost whispering.

He ended his turn.

"An impressive two thousand defense points, but that is nothing compared to 5100 attack points," Seto drew his card and continued. "Well, this card shall come in handy later, so I'll place it face down. Now, attack, my Blue-Eyes!"

Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon attacked with its powerful blast of energy again. In one big shot, Big Shield Guardnaut was destroyed, and Yami again was left without a monster to protect his Life Points.

"Your turn," he grinned at Yami, still lying in a small puddle of blood. His shirt became soaked in the red liquid.

Yami drew a card. He had drawn a card that would stall him two more turns at least. And his Life Points would be safe that way.

"Watapon (300/200) in defense mode. Using its special ability, I can summon another level one to four monster onto the field, so now I also summon Kuriboh (300/200) in defense mode as well," he said and ended his turn. The pain was beginning to become unbearable.

"I congratulate you for summoning the best possible defense: My grandmother's cat's hairballs," Seto laughed. The two puffballs were among the weakest monsters in the game, but it was all he had left.

Because of the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, the pyramid was not as dim as it had been. The light revealed something to Kaiba that he had not noticed earlier, even though he should have. Seto looked at Yami's back, and on it was a stab wound. He had seen the one in the front, but assumed it was fake, but once he saw the one on his back, he realized his clown's direct attack had indeed transfixed into his opponent. He had been too busy laughing and mocking his opponent to see the actual attack from his clown, and see the dagger go through his body, creating wounds on both sides of his opponent. For the first time during the entire duel, he felt concern that something may be going wrong in this duel. He had felt pain, too, after all.

"That wound, it's..." Kaiba could not even finish his sentence he was so shocked. He could not hide his feelings of being worried about everything.

"Real," Yami completed Seto's sentence. "Took you long enough."

"Shut up!" Seto remarked. "At least I figured it out, didn't I?"

"You're a little late," he argued. Seto did not reply.

"I suppose there is only one thing left to do," he sighed, knowing his fun had been spoiled. "End this duel."

Which in his terms, meant defeating him. Yami could easily see what was coming. Seto was egotistical, and would want to make himself look as good as possible. Just as he had used in their previous duel, Kaiba would use a card to bring back three powerful beasts, only this time ones that belonged not to him. He knew what this card was.

"First, I will sacrifice my Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon to deactivate the trap card Gods' Forsaken Tomb!"

The dragon's body was consumed into the darkness of the Gods' Forsaken Tomb card. The light it had brought to the room burnt out, and the room again became dark. The Gods' Forsaken Tomb card that was on the field began to glow, looking like it was about to burst. Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon had been completely gone, sacrificed to destroy the trap card.

Neither Yami nor Kaiba had expected what would come next. The card Kaiba had sacrificed his great beast to destroy remained. It stayed on the field, its power still in use.

"What the hell?" Seto exclaimed.

His concern for the destruction of the card would become less after he heard a bubbling noise behind him. He turned around to see a large puddle of blood boiling at his feet. He looked at it with confusion, unsure of why it was there or how it got there. But when something began to rise out of the puddle, his confusion became shadowed by fear. Seconds after the rising began the figure began to shape out. It was a human body, muscular and tall, and the blood began dripping off his body, exposing his skin and clothes. Once all the blood had fallen off his skin, the puddle he stood on was absorbed into the ground and disappeared.

"Thank you, Seto," the incipient man said in a voice recognizable to Kaiba. Remembering this voice from a few days ago on Pegasus' Island, when he received his cards, Seto trembled with fear yet bafflement. "You have served me well, but I believe it is my turn now."

Seto was not short, but he looked tiny compared to this man. The buff man looked down on him and grinned. Seto had never been face to face with a man that was significantly stronger than anyone he knew. His large hands were almost as big as his triceps, and his feet as large as his calves. Seeing how much thicker this guy was compared to him, Seto thought about fleeing right then. He had taken too long to contemplate it, because no sooner had the man grabbed him by the neck and lifted him in the air. To him, Kaiba was featherweight, lifting him with ease. As hard as he could, he threw him hard to the ground. Seto's body, hitting the ground head first, hit it with so much impact his body bounced off the ground a little bit. Kaiba lied on the ground, somewhat away from the dueling field, unconscious.

Through all of this, Yami could only watch. He saw Seto easily shoved aside and this mysterious man, who seemed a bit familiar at first glance, stood in his place on the opposing end. He would have helped Kaiba if he could, but he could not and felt horrible because of it.

The mysterious man turned around and saw Yami where he saw him last: on the ground, alive and conscious. He would finally get his chance to confront the one he had been waiting to deal with. He had his target right where he wanted him and how he wanted him. The predator glared at his enemy and laughed.

"Oh my, 't has been long since I've seen you," he said. "Do you remember me?"

Yami could not come up with his name. As familiar as the man was to him, he could not recall his name.

"How sad, I suppose you do not, seeing how you have not answered," he sighed happily. "It is I, the all mighty Anubis."

Such a typical villain entrance, but it occurred to Yami that this was the God powered fiend whose tomb was displayed at the museum. Apparently, it was also the same fiend that he himself had defeated years ago. He had no memory of any of it, but research had spoke for itself.

"I guess I get no 'welcome back' or anything," he sighed. "Well let me be courteous by saying that it is good to see you after all these years."

Yami still lay on the ground, silent. Even though he could not remember the evil actions of this fiend, he knew that it was he responsible for all that had been occurring. There was no other explanation, and plus if his intentions were evil, as they had learned earlier, then all of these actions would fit in his category.

"What? Have you no memory of me?" he asked waving his arms. "I'm the God powered evil that everyone fears."

"I'm aware of that," Yami finally spoke. Everything had been so distracting that he did not notice his puzzle glow for a brief moment. "What do you want?"

Anubis began laughing hysterically and was aware of the glowing of the puzzle.

"For a pharaoh, you seem to be mindless about many things," he commented. "I would have thought my intentions were obvious, for they are the same as before, only with one minor detour."

Recalling what he had learned at the museum, Yami understood what it was Anubis wanted, and that was destruction. Destruction of the world, destruction of mankind, and destruction of his slayer: him.

The long arms of mummies reached to grab Yugi, but Joey and Tristan pulled him out of their reach just in time. Yugi was clearly distracted by what Anubis had said, and cared less about the mummies which would threaten his life. Joey shook Yugi's body, trying to get him to come to the sense of things.

"Yugi, wake up!" he yelled at him. "There are flesh thriving mummies out there, and you were gonna just stand there and let 'em eat you alive?"

Yugi finally came to his senses. He turned his head, looking at the human mummies. Of course he was afraid of them, but he understood that this all had to be stopped somehow. The mummies began closing in on them as Yugi tried plotting a way to escape the puzzle. Joey and Tristan put themselves in a fighter stance, ready to beat the crap out of anything that would come close. It would of course be useless to fight the living dead.

Yugi had absolutely no idea what to do until he saw the eye hanging above the platform Anubis' coffin lied on. The coffin was still there, and inside Yugi hoped he could find the weapon of his defeat, considering he had been buried with it.

"You got an idea, Yug?" Tristan asked, his back to him so he could keep track of the distance between the mummies and them.

"This is the biggest favor I could ever ask from you guys," he began in a sad voice. What he was about to ask was a long shot and risky, but he could think of nothing else. "Do you think we could somehow clear a path of mummies so that I could get to the coffin? There might be something in there that could help us."

"Wow, you're actually askin' us to beat the shit out of someone! Let's do it!" Joey yelled as he dashed into the crowd of mummies.

As hard and fast as they could, they punched at the mummies ahead of them, sending their fists through all sorts of body parts. No blood was spilled, but body pieces went soaring in the air from this. Their punches flew in all sorts of directions, and every time it hit a mummy. To their grief, even though they seemed to be damaging them, the mummies did not lay down and die. In fact, they continued moving after them, and the only time they walked away from them was if their head had been taken off their body so they could no longer see where they were going.

"Aim for the head!" Tristan yelled, which was easy for Joey and him, but not so much for the vertically challenged Yugi.

Eventually, Joey and Tristan had knocked enough heads off enough mummies for there to be a small, mummy free path for Yugi to get to the coffin. The second he saw the clear path, Yugi dashed through it and leaped into the coffin. Joey and Tristan continued fighting off the seemingly never-ending supply of undead.

Underneath the wraps of a mummy, Yugi searched for the weapon that defeated Anubis five thousand years ago. Just as he had suspected, the dagger, which the Egyptians would later call the dagger of fate, was in there. Surprised Anubis had left it in there, Yugi took it into his hand, holding it by the end of the blade, and stood up in the coffin, staring at high hanging eye on the wall.

"Wanna toss me that dagger, Yugi?" Tristan cried out to him as he fought off another group of mummies that came after him.

"I have a hunch," he told Tristan. "That eye, I think that might be our way out. That seems to be where all the power is being held, and it's probably the only thing that's keeping us trapped in here right now. If I can hit it, then maybe it'll set us free."

Joey and Tristan weren't all for the idea, but did not see how it could make anything worse. They signaled to Yugi to throw the dagger at the eye as they continued punching and kicking the mummies around them. Dagger in hand, Yugi held it by the blade and threw his arm back. He was about to let it fly when a light in the far right corner of the room went off. It blinded Yugi for a moment, and when the light disappeared, Yugi saw that another person had been pulled into the puzzle.

"Tea!" he yelled to her as her body floated in the air.

"Yugi, get me down!" Tea cried for help again. She looked down to see a hoard of mummies below her. "I take that back, don't let me down!"

The mummies below her watched her, waiting for her to fall into their hands. Joey and Tristan tried to make their way over there, but could not. They had become tired from all the fighting they had been doing, and there were just too many mummies in their way.

"Hang on!" Yugi told her as he looked back at the eye. He lifted his arm to throw the dagger, but was again stopped from doing so.

"Do not think I do not see what is going on in there," they heard Anubis' voice echo through the room. He was speaking to them through thought.

"You again!" Yugi yelled. "Now what?"

"You should not have thought I would let you wreck my plans so easily," Anubis indicated that Yugi's assumption about the eye being the source that kept them in the puzzle was correct.

"You're too late," Yugi was about to chuck the dagger when he saw Tea's body start to fall into the mummies. Once he stopped himself from throwing the dagger, Tea's body stopped falling. Anubis had control of Tea's body, and could let her fall any time he felt.

"I am no late, or should I say she is not late," he laughed. "Mortal, you can throw that dagger at the eye, but once that dagger leaves your hand, the girl leaves the air and she will have a nice fall into the mummies below."

Yugi's heart pranced. He was put in a situation had never wanted to be in.

"What makes you think you will even hit the eye? Are you willing to risk the life of a friend just for a chance to save yourselves? Why, what if you were to miss? Her body would fall into the mummies and surely be torn to shreds and eaten," he told Yugi the consequences.

It was more than their lives at risk. He knew of Anubis' plan, and if he were to escape, there was a slight chance he could possibly prevent it from taking place. But he would sacrifice an innocent life for only a gamble. Even if he were to succeed, it would all be a chance. It would be up to Yugi to decide if that was good enough.

"Yugi, remember our friendship..." Tea spoke softly.

"Tea, I'm sorry, but I don't think another friendship speech is gonna help Yugi make up his mind," Joey told her, still fighting off mummies with Tristan.

She knew that he was right. Almost nothing she could say would help him make his decision.

"Throw the dagger and cut the thread that holds your friend's life!" Anubis repeated over and over again, encouraging Yugi to throw it to increase the strength of his guilty conscience. Yugi wanted to cover his ears so he could not hear his voice, but he could not escape it. The grip of the dagger lightened, almost falling out of his hand. It was the worst, most difficult decision of his life, because it looked as if regardless of what he chose, somebody would lose.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"I am disappointed in you," Anubis exaggerated. "We have so many memories together, yet you lack the remembrance of any of them. Not to mention that we dueled the deadliest shadow game the past could ever reveal."

"I don't need to remember everything to understand what it is you plan to do," growled Yami, still unable to stand.

"Oh you do know. As I expected you to," he said, his eyes looking at the ground. "But I highly doubt you know why."

"I defeated you years ago. That's why," Yami concluded.

"That is far too vague to be entirely true," he said. Yami was not sure what he meant by that. "You are right, but it goes beyond that, because it is not just you I despise."

He paused and turned away.

"Society in general, I envy it," he seemed to be more emotional. "Congenitally I was not only cursed with the untying of my doing, but I was also cursed with the expectations of a dark destiny. To everyone except my parents who died not long after my birth, I was nothing but a shadow that could strike at any time. Yet my heart had not been put on the scale for its weight to be tested, so the humans and their so-called kings had nothing to judge their assumptions! I hated them for it! I was tormented by society for a darkness that was not only yet to occur, but a guess they could not confirm! Why point the finger at me? Was my name so terrible that I had to be treated as I was? This hatred boiled in my blood for years until finally I decided to fulfill the destiny people had chosen for me, because it is what they deserved! What surprised me is the shocked look on their faces the day I carried out their expectations."

Hearing all his rage, Yami almost felt compassionate for his enemy. He did have a reasonably understandable excuse for his madness. He had been mistreated his entire life, and only because his name was that of an Egyptian God, which was hardly an excuse for abuse. Even though it was the belief of the Egyptian society that one who carried a God name was sinful, it did not judge the person's true character, and Yami understood that.

"Then why do you take your anger out on me?" he asked, that part being the only unclear piece of Anubis' insanity.

Anubis looked into his eyes, and fire seemed to burn in them.

"You really do not know, do you?" Anubis said angrily. "Of course the fact that you stopped me from succeeding in my desire to destroy everything has some weight on it, but also because you were part of that crowd."

Yami was surprised. He did not believe that he would be so foolish as to do that to someone. But then he remembered that this was all five thousand years ago, which he had hardly any memory of. He could not recall such a thing.

"As part of the blood line of a king, you were probably given many caveats of my darkness long before many, and you chose to believe such despicable foolishness! As royalty, you should have known better, but you did not! It was you who greatly influence the idea of me causing chaos, was it not? It was you who helped my bad name grow to such popularity, and left me stranded out on the city streets to look for work!"

He knew his own personality, and he knew he would never do anything of the sort to anyone. Unfortunately, he could not remember anything from his past, so he had nothing to argue with but his own word, which in this case would not be good enough.

"I would never..." Yami tried to say something, but was quickly cut off.

"You would! You are a mortal with a shallow mind, and nothing more! You are just damn lucky that there was always work that was needed in Egypt and I got by!" Anubis was breathing heavily from all of his screaming.

Yami felt it was best not to say anything. If he told him I did not do it but had nothing to back up his answer, Anubis would only yell at him more and perhaps worsen the situation. Anubis' power was greater than his, especially in the position he was in now was.

"The world will pay for its lack of good and equal judgement," assured Anubis. "I will see of it."

"You understand you chose to fulfill what people had predetermined for you," Yami told him.

"And it was what the people deserved, plus more," he sighed. "Enough about that. Let us continue the duel, shall we? It is never good to leave a game unfinished."

Anubis turned to Yami, the sphere in his crystal pyramid beginning to glow. The figuration of two monsters began to glow on the ground in front of him on the field. Anubis was now going to duel in Seto's place and use his own monsters in the duel. It was Kaiba's turn, so all of it was permitted. The monsters were obviously real, just as he had created them to be.

Yami, weak and practically defenseless, could do nothing but continue to duel, though he was not sure how much longer he would last. He could say nothing that would change Anubis' mind, and he could do nothing to stop him from doing so, especially if he had the power of the true God Anubis.

"I remember our duel," his evil grin returned to his face. "Do you remember how it ended?"

Yami shook his head, moaning as the pain continued.

"It never ended really," he said as the outlines of his monsters began to rise from the ground. Again, Yami was not sure what he meant by what he said.

When the light from the outlines faded, two monsters with large dog bodies stood on his side of the field. One contained the head of a vicious canine, the other the head of a female vampire with long hair. On their paws were sharp, butcher knife size claws and virulent saliva dripped from their mouths.

"These are my old friends, Adro Sphinx (3000/2500) and Sphinx Teleia (2500/3000). They were here the last time you and I got together," he said. "I had to keep Gods' Forsaken Tomb on the field, otherwise I could never bring them to the field so easily."

The two Sphinxes growled angrily, both containing heavy attack and defense powers. Yami had two monsters on the field, which were supposed to protect his Life Points. Little did he know that both of them had effects which could decrease them to the littlest possible.

"What cute hairballs you have on the field," Anubis laughed at the weak Watapon and Kuriboh in defense mode. "They shall make a good snack for my monsters, though they will not be nearly enough to fill their stomachs."

He pointed ahead of him and signaled his monsters to attack. Lightning fast, the two monsters leaped across the field and held both Kuriboh and Watapon down with a single paw. Claws out and teeth bearing, the female and male sphinxes opened their great jaws and bit harshly into Yami's last wall of defense. With one chomp, both monsters were destroyed and the two monsters returned to their master.

Though he had thought his Life Points were safe, he felt another extreme wave of pain go through his body. His body felt like it was falling a hole but never hit the bottom. Bones felt snapped into several pieces, and muscles felt ripped to shreds. All this pain, from when he first lost Life Points to Peten the Dark Clown to this recent attack, had added up and now Yami was precariously close to death. He could not even hold his head up to stare at his opponent, and it fell to the ground. Through all of this, he was conscious, his eyes still open yet not able to see much. He lied in his puddle of blood, motionless. He was able to look at his duel disk to see his Life Points had dropped to fifty.

"When Sphinx Teleia attacks a monster in defense position, half of that monster's defense points are deducted from my opponent's life points, and when Andro Sphinx attacks a monster on defense, half of that monster's attack points are deducted from your Life Points. Do the math, and you lose two hundred and fifty Life Points from your remaining three hundred," informed Anubis as his body glowed a little bit, absorbing the strength Yami had lost.

Though he looked dead, he knew Yami was alive. With only fifty life points left, he knew his foe would be no threat. He had sucked almost every ounce of life from him, and he was suffering through the worst of pain. Blood dripped from his mouth and he was hardly breathing. His enemy right where he wanted him, exactly how he wanted him, Anubis walked from his side of the field to Yami's. Slowly, he approached the one he had despised for so long. He stood in front of his face so that Yami would see that he was there. Yami dragged his chin along the ground to only see the feet of Anubis, unsure of why he was over on his side.

"This duel was never about me defeating you in some game," he told him.

Yami tried to lift his arms so he could try to lift his body from the ground, but failed miserably. He wanted to say something, but no words would come from him.

"You have been sapped of your strength," he reached behind his back. The sound of a blade rubbing against something hard rang in Yami's ears. His eyes suddenly opened wider. "Now to sap you of your life just as mine was."

It sent pain through the entire back of his neck, but Yami turned his head to see that Anubis had unsheathed a dagger into his right hand. The sheath hung on his belt behind the cape on his back. He was prescience of what would come next.

Yami felt himself being lifted in the back of the neck. Just hanging in the air made him grunge in pain. Anubis' large hand then moved to hold him by the front of his neck, though his long wide fingers could still grasp the back as well. His grip tightened, almost choking his victim. Yami felt himself being held above his own height, Anubis holding him as high as he could. Anubis held the dagger tightly at the handle and pointed the end of the blade at his desired target.

He could delay his decision no longer. Yugi knew what he had to do, and he would forever be in disgust with himself, but that would have to have been his other sacrifice. He retightened the grip around the blade of the dagger, cutting his hand. The pain in his hand was the least of his concerns at that time. Tears rolling down his face, he reopened his eyes and looked at his friend hanging above the mummies. 

"Tea," he spoke in a shaky voice. "I'm sorry."

She knew his decision. Though she was likely to be sacrificed, Tea knew that he had made the right choice, and could not have been more proud of her friend for knowing it. With thousands of other innocent lives at stake, she could not be selfish. Joey and Tristan began to cry while beating up the mummies, knowing that the moment had come.

"Yugi," she called to him before carrying out his decision. "Thank you. Thank you for everything."

He was upset, but Yugi showed her a smile. It was the least he could have done.

In one motion, Yugi threw the dagger at the eye on the wall, the dagger spinning in the air several times. He glanced back at Tea, whose body had fallen into the mummies and was no longer visible. He shot his eyes back at the dagger, still making its way to the eye.

Yugi's heart had been broken, because just as Anubis suggested, he missed. The dagger's blade became stuck in the wall exactly next to the eye. It cracked portions of the wall next to it, but the dagger did not hit the eye. Yugi fell to his knees, thinking that he had failed and lost his friend's life because of it. He covered his eyes, but his hands could not hold back the tears.

Joey and Tristan tried making their way to the area where Tea's body had fallen, but it was useless. There were too many of them, and they had become exhausted. The mummies seemed to be gathering around them, ready to eat them alive as well.

The sound of cracking echoed through the room. Yugi looked up to see that the pupil of the fake eye was beginning to crack. There was now a large crack in it, and a black light emerged from it. Apparently, the cracking in the wall the dagger had caused had extended to the eye. While this crack would not be enough to burst it, it would be enough to break half of Anubis' seal. The seal that kept them locked in the puzzle. Yugi, Tristan, Joey, and Tea's body were being lifted back into the air and then disappeared, escaping the peril in the puzzle.

Joey and Tristan woke up on the outside of the pyramid where they had been sucked into the eye. The eye on the pyramid was no longer there as they stood up to look at it. Around them, Mokuba, Pegasus, and Duke had been there, along with Tea's body, which had bite marks, scratches, and deep wounds in it.

"Joey! Tristan! Tea!" Mokuba cried.

"Oh my god! What happened to Tea?" Duke cried, holding her motionless body up in his arms.

"Mummies, dude!" Tristan told, though Duke seemed not to believe him. He did not expect to see him, but bothered not to ask why he was there.

"We swear! It's a long story, but...hey where's Yugi?" Joey looked around, but Yugi was no where in sight. He ran around the pyramid, but he was not anywhere.

"You don't think he's still...in there, do you?" Tristan asked Joey, the only other person that would understand what went on.

"He could be in the pyramid," he looked at the tall black pyramid. "Let's just hope he's ok."

"Guys! Quick!" Duke called them.

Joey and Tristan ran back over to Duke and found that there had been at least one miracle out of everything that had just happened.

He was seconds from his death, and all Yami could think about was how it all came to that moment. It did not seem like this was the end for him, but it looked like that was what it was.

_Is this what fate has chosen for me? For me never to remember the past I seek and to make no impact on this generation? After everything I've been through, it all comes down to this?_ He thought to himself, still being held in the air. He did not want to believe that his fate would be sealed at such a time where he was beginning to learn his true identity, but there was not a sign that indicated other wise. He shut his eyes, ready to accept his doom.

Anubis was about to complete the killing when he saw Yami's puzzle begin to glow. He knew what had happened, especially after he could no longer see what was happening in the puzzle. The one he had thought he sealed away, he had succeeded. Under strong emotional pressure, under life-threatening circumstances, he broke through the seal. An ordinary mortal able to destroy a God's power...

He was thinking about this far too hard! Anubis, after puzzle's glowing had stopped, again focussed on slaughtering the life he had in his hand. Nothing the mortal could do would be able to stop him.

After being released from the puzzle, Yugi gradually awoken. He opened his eyes to a room that was closer to pitch black, but he knew where he was. He had not yet been sucked into the puzzle until after Gods' Forsaken Tomb had taken place. His eyes still a little blurry, he rubbed them and sat up, his right hand still containing the cut from the dagger he threw. Strange how he did not feel Yami's spirit present with his, as it normally was. As a matter of fact, he had been back in his original, shorter body, but Yami always took control when they dueled, and they were in the middle of a duel with Kaiba. That is what he remembered at least.

Yugi had awoken on the outside of the field on the right side. He saw two monsters he had never seen or heard of before on Kaiba's side, but simply assumed they were two new monsters from Seto. It was not until he saw Seto knocked out that he knew they were not his. He was about to go to him to see if Seto was ok, but he saw something at the corner of his eye that worried him more.

On his side of the field, the man he had seen being revived in the puzzle, Anubis, holding his dear friend Yami high in the air in the grasp of his left hand. What Anubis had shown him while in the puzzle, with Yami losing his life, was not a gimmick as Yugi only had hoped. Blood dripping from his body and mouth, the dazed look on his face, and dangling body only justified it more. He saw the razor sharp dagger in Anubis' hand, its blade directed at Yami. He finally understood that he had not sensed Yami's spirit with him because the two of them, for the first time, were in separate bodies.

"Yami!" he yelled to his friend, knowing what was about to happen.

Hearing Yugi's voice, Yami opened his eyes. He saw Yugi, several feet away from them, watching with the worst look of fear and sadness he had ever seen. It was a relief to see Yugi alive and well, but he wished not to have him see such a gruesome, horrid sight. Him and Yugi stared eye to eye for what seemed like minutes, Yugi's stare seemingly telling Yami, unintentionally, that he did not believe it was meant to be this way that they could not suffer through journeys of death and loss and not achieve their main purpose. Yami could see his future now, even though he knew what was coming looked to be the end.

_This cannot be my fate_, he gave himself one last thought before the moment arrived.

It looked like it all happened in slow motion. Anubis' arm swung over his head, the tip of the sharp edge shining in the darkness. Like throwing a baseball at ninety miles per hour, his arm was thrown forward, carrying the dagger with him. An unpleasant sound of ripping flesh echoed through the blackness. Large drops of blood flew across the field and a surprising silent cry of pain was let out. Anubis released his grip on the dagger, it being in so deep into the center of his enemy's chest it would not fall out. Once blood dripped from his toes, he dropped the body to the ground, the dead looking Yami landing on his back. Savoring victory over his nemesis, Anubis left the dagger where it had been jammed in.

And through all of it, Yugi did nothing but watch the devastating massacre. Such a sight had felt to burn a hole in his eyes, but worst of all, his heart.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Caring less if his life were in danger, Yugi ran to his fallen friend, who lay motionless and did not even gasp for air. Anubis still towered over his slayed foe, continuing to celebrate what he thought to be a victory. He had seen Yugi run to Yami, but cared not, assuming he would be of no threat to him. Yugi lifted his friend's head and held it close to him. He couldn't hear him breathing, his eyes seemingly wired shut. Silently, he cried for his friend, seeing him gone away after all the hardships.

"I ought to kill you!" Yugi looked up at Anubis.

"I would like to see you try," Anubis laughed.

"Bastard! You no good bastard!" Yugi shot a short string of curses at him, which was so out of character.

"Is that the best you can do? Bastard?" he took it as a joke. "That would be one goal off my list."

He began to skip back to the opposing side of the field. He was quite pleased with himself for what he had accomplished. Now he felt as if there was only one thing left to do...

"You!" pointed Yugi, standing up. "This isn't over!"

"Oh I think it is. Just look at the pharaoh," he stared at Yami's bloody body lying on the ground next to Yugi. "It looks to me that he is no shape to fight back."

"The duel, it is yet to be finished!"

Apparently, Yugi wished to finish the remainder of the duel with him, because to him, it was the only way to avenge his alter ego. It was a hilarious idea to Anubis, considering he had not been around for the majority of the duel and would have no idea what was going on. Not to mention he would be dueling in Yami's place, who only had fifty Life Points, one card left to draw, and no monsters on the field, while he had two powerful beasts on the field along with 1300 Life Points. Plus, he needed not to complete the duel. There would almost be no point to it.

Oh, what a small amusement it should have been.

"You want to finish the duel? You want to go head to head with the one who makes these monsters real?" Anubis had to ask, giggling under his breath.

Yugi ripped the duel disk off of Yami's wrist and put it on his. He picked up the cards that were in Yami's hand off the ground and held them as they should have been. He wiped his tears from his face and stared coldly at Anubis.

"You and I will finish this duel, and I will defeat you!" he cried.

"You are quite the fiesty one, are you not?" he laughed. "Fine, mortal. Have it your way. I shall finish this game with you."

He stood at the proper spot to duel and crossed his arms. He would need no cards to continue this game.

"I believe it is your turn," he smiled. "So go."

The only thing Yugi could really calculate was that he had only fifty Life Points and Anubis had 1300, reading the Life Points off of his and Kaiba's duel disk. He reached to draw a card from his deck, but saw he only had one card left, and he had but two other cards in his hand. He drew the last card in his deck, but it was only a magic card, and the other two cards in his hand were also magic. One of them would be no use to him, Pot of Greed, since he had no other cards to draw. His other two cards, Premature Burial and Reverse of Reverse, he did not know how to put use to them because he would have needed to be at the entire duel to know what cards to reuse.

_Premature Burial to get Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, Reverse of Reverse on his attack, then Back From a Different Dimension,_ he heard a familiar voice inside his head. It was Yami's voice, but Yugi was unsure how he could possibly be hearing his voice. This distracted him from the duel for a few seconds, and then he looked at his cards and understood what Yami's voice was telling him. He had seen only seen small portions of the duel, from when Anubis showed him clips from Yami's suffering, but he could recall the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon and its devistating attack. And he knew the Back From a Different Dimension card, which belonged to Kaiba, because of the previous duel. Yugi looked over to Anubis' side of the field and saw that there was still a card face down, and it was probably the last card Kaiba played before Anubis took over. Finally, the Gods' Forsaken Tomb card seemed to give Anubis an advantage.

It was then he developed a strategy.

"I'll use Premature Burial," he placed the card in the duel disk. "I can use it to discard one card from my hand so I can reuse one card in the Graveyard."

Anubis scratched his head. He could not think of anything in the Graveyard that would be to his benefit.

"Go, Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon!" he called out the name of the ancient beast that was all too familiar to Anubis. The mythical dragon reappeared, only this time on Yugi's side of the field.

It had been his at one point, and he remembered that Kaiba had used it and sacrificed it to destroy the Gods' Forsaken Tomb card. Anubis had prevented Seto from destroying it earlier, but if Yugi was planning to attempt the same, then he would let this one slide. After all, the card had served its purpose.

"And now I'll sacrifice it to destroy Gods' Forsaken Tomb!" he demanded.

The Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon flew towards the face-up card as its body became nothing more than a stream of bright light. The bright light it had become collided directly with the Gods' Forsaken Tomb card, and the card shattered, no longer in use. Once this card was destroyed, both Andro Sphinx and Sphinx Teleia were destroyed, from the effect of Gods' Forsaken Tomb. The pyramid that surrounded them began to fade away. Light began to pour in on them once again as the dark light became dimmer and dimmer until it was completely gone.

On the outside, the entire group of Joey, Tristan, Duke, Mokuba, Pegasus and Tea stood together on Anubis' side. They had seen the black pyramid disappear and saw Yugi and Anubis facing off on the dueling field.

"Yugi!" Joey called to him, but Yugi did not respond, too concentrated on his opponent to reply.

"One card face down, and that's my turn," he said placing his last card on the field.

Anubis laughed at the fact that Yugi lacked a single monster card. His Life Points were wide open, and because Sphinx Teleia and Andro Sphinx were destroyed at the same time, he could summon his greatest beast without a sacrifice.

"With no monster cards on the field, you are open to a direct attack, and there is no better beast to destroy you with other than my mightiest creature," he told Yugi, but he was not nervous.

Anubis' black pearl glowed again, and then another monster outline began to form on the field. This monster seemed to be a mix of his two previous monsters, only with one body and much larger. Once the outline was completely, a dark light shined from the outline and glowed up to the ceiling. The light faded away and what stood there now was a monster with two vicious heads and had the ability to stand on its hind legs, its large paws having big claws and mouths having razor sharp teeth.

"Meet Theinin the Great Sphinx (3500/3000)!" he cried the name of his strongest monster. "I am thanking you for several things today, am I not? Releasing me from the puzzle, helping me at achieving my goal of backlash at the pharaoh, allowing me to summon my precious Sphinx, how many more favors are you going to do for me?"

Yugi tried not to let Anubis' taunting bother him. He felt guilty for several accounts, but he was hoping to set it right once Anubis declared his attack.

"I think 3500 attack points is just enough to take down the remainder of your Life Points, along with you as well!" he laughed, assuring himself he had won. "Theinin, attack him directly! Take out the rest of his Life Points and tear him limb from limb!"

The gigantic beast leaped highly into the air in Yugi's direction. Bearing its claws and teeth, Theinin the Great Sphinx was more than ready to take its prey down. The group on the sidelines cried out to Yugi to look out or do something, but Yugi seemed to ignore them, smiling all the while.

"I am assuming that you are happy for your death, for all the chaos you have caused, your conscience has surely beat on you enough," Anubis laughed.

"No, I'm happy for your loss," he told him. Anubis' laughter came to a sudden stop. "Reveal face down card: Reverse of Reverse!"

Anubis knew he had been fooled, but was not surprised by it nor threatened.

"I can use the last card played by my opponent, and since you didn't play any cards, I can use the last one used by Seto Kaiba," he explained. "And the last card he played was that face-down card on your side of the field."

Anubis jerked his head to the card Yugi pointed at. He had forgotten all about it, and he knew what card it was. Anubis knew he would not win this duel.

"Back From a Different Dimension!" Yugi cried out. The faced down card flipped up. "I can bring back three monsters that have been removed from play and summon them to the field. And I choose my three Egyptian God cards: Obelisk, Osiris, and Ra!"

Three spotlights, of the colors red, yellow and blue, shined down to Yugi's side of the field. Clouds formed at the ceiling again, and once the crack of thunder was heard, all three Egyptian God monsters reappeared onto the field. Together, the three ancient beasts stood together, crying their thunderous calls, towering over even Theinin the Great Sphinx.

"Now combine yourselves for infinite power!" he demanded.

The three Egyptian Gods' bodies began to glow with a flame around their bodies. A red flame surrounded Osiris, a blue flame around Obelisk, and a bright yellow around Ra, who was now in its phoenix mode. Theinin the Great Sphinx stopped in its tracks from attacking Yugi, staring blankly at the power-growing Gods. Once built to as strong of force as possible, the three Gods flew their bodies forward. As soon as they launched themselves forward, the flames that surrounded their bodies were shot off. While flying in midair, the Gods' flames merged, forming a bright pink colored flame. With great force, the combined strength of the Gods hit the Great Sphinx directly. Seconds after being hit, Theinin the Great Sphinx exploded to bits. Anubis' Life Points were now at zero, showing he had lost the duel.

"Oh yeah!" Tristan congratulated Yugi from the side as the Gods disappeared because of the ending of the duel.

"You beat 'im, Yug! You beat 'im!" Joey shouted.

Having defeating him, Yugi was expecting Anubis to disappear or be gone in some way, but Anubis remained standing on the field, continuing to laugh. He recalled the information he had learned at the museum, and finally remembered defeat caused the activation of the curse, but defeat meant death.

"This was _never_ about completing an unfinished duel from the past," laughed Anubis. "You have done me one more favor, and that is dispose of the Gods' Forsaken Tomb card for me, because now that I am no longer trapped in there, I can unleash my wrath upon the world!"

_Author's Note: I know that Premature Burial was not the correct card that was used, but I could not recall the name of the real card that was used in this situation of the movie. So for the moment, I have used the Premature Burial card name. If you know what card it was and know the name of it, please let me know and I shall correct it right away._


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Carrying Tea in his arms, Duke, along with Joey, Tristan, who had grabbed Seto's body and was dragging it over, Mokuba and Pegasus, ran over to Yugi, staying as far from Anubis as possible. The group sensed a feeling in Yugi that they had never seen in him before: hate. Cordial eyes of his became eyes of flaming anger and opposition. His small hands were in fists, and his stare would direct at nothing else but Anubis, who laughed worse than Yami Marik ever had.

"Yugi, what's with steroid man over there?" Duke asked him of Anubis, though Tristan and Joey explained to him who he was. Again, Yugi did not answer.

"Monsters of the shadows! Rise from the ashes in which you slept as for so long," Anubis began chanting some kind of prophecy. "Awake from the shadows where your souls dwelled. Release your rage upon the earth, and burn it until it has become the hell you lived. Rise, creatures of the dark! Rise and pity no living being!"

The black pearl began glowing again. This time, it was brighter than usual, and a silent screech sounded from it as it glowed brightly. Scattered about the floor, puddles of blood boiled around them. Just as Anubis had rose from a boiling blood puddle, bodies began rising from the boiling puddles, only this time they were bodies not of human formed. Odd enough, duel monsters began rising from theses puddles. Ryu-Kishin and Ryu-Kishin Powered, Mystic Clown, Giant Axe Mummy, and Ogre of the Black Shadow were among the monsters to come from these puddles. Once their bodies were no longer soaked in blood, the puddles disappeared. Surrounded by monsters all over, the entire group began to panic.

"H-how could this...?" Pegasus stuttered in fear.

The Ogre of the Black Shadow charged a black ball of energy in its hands. When grown to a size of its liking, the ball flew out of its hands and hit a nearby wall of the dome, breaking it to pieces. A huge hole was left in the wall, and all the monsters that had appeared inside the dome squirmed their way out, making their way to the city. Yugi and everyone else ran to the hole in the wall to see that there were monsters about the city, destroying the buildings, the cars, the street lamps, but most importantly, the people.

"Fools, there is nothing you can do to stop me!" Anubis told them.

The black marble was still glowing brightly, and a dark outline began to form around Anubis. His already big body began to grow even larger, him growing taller and his body becoming wider still. Even scarier was that he was beginning to grow black fur all over his body. A tail began to grow, and his ears became taller and pointier. His eyes looked to have no pupils, being pure white, and wings that looked like those of an angel grew from his back. His face grew a snout and long jaw with spear pointed teeth, the fangs being of notice, and his hands and feet grew claws worse than those of a bear. His transformation was complete. Standing on his hind legs on the upper half of his feet, his long feet being strong enough to hold his weight, was Anubis in the form of a giant black jackal with gorgeous white angel wings, the crystal pyramid with the black pearl still worn around his neck. Toxic and acidic saliva spit from his mouth as he roared in his new form.

"He went from Hulk Hogan to wolf man?" Joey's voice was shaking in fear.

"The fourth Egyptian God monster would have looked like this!" Anubis was still able to talk, even in the form of a way over grown dog. His voice sounded the same, only with a bit of a sharper tone.

Anubis went on a rampage, practicing his new dark powers in his new form. His mouth opened and he charged up black, dark energy and shot it at another wall of the dome. The power was so great that the wall exploded into the tiniest pieces of visible matter ever. Howling, he then used his new claw filled hands and larger feet to start knocking off the remainder of the wall. Swiping his paw-like hands franticly, the wall that was not facing the city was being torn apart piece by piece. The grand building itself would probably not last a whole lot longer at the rate Anubis was going.

"Damnet! You thought he would have stopped after Yugi beat him in the duel," Joey mumbled to himself.

"What are we gonna do now?" Duke asked.

"I'm thinkin' we work with this dude first," Tristan suggested. "He seems to be the catalyst of all this."

The word 'we' in that previous sentence finally caught Yugi's attention.

"No," Yugi said silently but audibly.

"No? You mean we leave this psycho here and go into the city? No offense but that don't sound too bright, Yug," told Joey.

Yugi stepped forward, but stuck his arm out to show that he did not want them to follow him.

"No meaning I want to bring him down, me and no one else," he replied.

"Oh hell no! That's crazy!" Duke shouted at him, still holding Tea in his arms.

"We're not gonna lose you, too!" Tristan cried.

Yugi sighed in grief and sadness.

"Listen, maybe all this isn't really my fault, but I can't help but feel responsible for everything this madman's done," he began. "I put together the puzzle and let him loose to bring chaos to this world once again. This is my fight, and I need to do this on my own, not only because I release reborned this monster with my own hands, but because I need to prove to myself that I can pull myself through difficult situations that will affect everyone else."

The entire group stood in shock.

"Yugi..." Mokuba whispered.

Taking the three Egyptian God cards out from his deck, Yugi handed the remainder of his deck to Tristan.

"I'm already at war with myself for what happened to Tea, but I could never find a way to forgive myself if he took any more of you, and if you stayed here, the chances of him getting you are greater," his voice became shaky as he continued. "The city needs your help. Don't stay with me...please."

The group understood what he was saying. Out of any them, Yugi was probably the one with the weakest physical defense, but the one with the will stronger than the light of the sun. They worried for him, but supported him and were at an understanding of his feelings. Respecting his wishes, they began to leave, hoping that it would not be the last time they would see their friend.

"Thank you," he called to his friends as he stood alone in the Dome facing possibly his toughest foe. "I can't thank you enough."

"You're welcome, and you're never alone," a female voice called to him. He looked back over at them, and looking up at him, alive but gravely injured, was Tea. Though she fell into flesh eating mummies, they had not killed her. And she had been conscious through mostly everything. Knowing she was alive made Yugi feel better and gained a bit of confidence through it. She smiled at him as Duke, running with Pegasus, Mokuba, Joey and Tristan, carried her out to the city.

All the while, Bakura had only watched from aside. His dark spirit was immediately able to recognize the foe Yugi was facing. Anubis, the God named foe whose strength could not be compared to even the strongest of darkness. Being a spirit of the past, Bakura understood the power of this enemy, and knew that even he probably could not stop him, especially in the form he was now.

The idea of Anubis defeating the pharaoh disgusted him however. He had come all this way to have possession of his Millennium Puzzle, but with this fiend fighting him, Bakura would not be able to get it. If there was even another hope of him getting the puzzle, or any other Millennium Items for that matter, he could not let Anubis defeat Yugi. As a dark spirit from long ago, he possessed powers most others could not compare to, so he could use what he had to go against Anubis.

Finding himself being a bit of a coward at that moment, Bakura thought of a way to help Yugi without acutally getting involved with Anubis himself. He turned away and left the dome, his better spirited half gaining more control over his body.

Turning back to Anubis, Yugi stared at the three Egyptian God cards in his hand. Somehow, he knew he would have to bring life to these beasts and use them to defeat Anubis. Unfortunately, he knew not on how to do so. Anubis was still abusing the wall his dark powers had shot a hole in, so it bought Yugi some time to think of something. He walked back over to Yami's body, standing in front of it for protection, though it seemed pointless at that point. For the moment, he placed the three cards in his pocket. It was then he noticed the Millennium Puzzle. With ancient powers, it could have the magic to bring alive the ancient beasts. Yugi thought of this only to realize he did not know how to activate most of its powers.

"Where has your posse gone off to?" Anubis talked to Yugi, surprising him.

Yugi jerked his head up only to be knocked flat by Anubis' swinging hand. The force of the hit sent Yugi's undeveloped body flying feet away from where he was standing. He only stopped flying when Anubis placed his hand on his chest, holding him down on his back. Yugi's body was hardly a third of Anubis' black haired hand. Claws surrounding his head, he found himself unable to move at all, his entire body except his head trapped under the hand. He looked up at Anubis' jackal head, whose blank eyes looked down on him.

"Be grateful I did not make you suffer as the pharaoh did," he said, pressing his hand on Yugi harder. Yugi found it hard to breathe, trying to squirm his body from Anubis.

Standing on all four legs, Anubis planned to finish little Yugi off with one massive blow. He opened his mouth, charging a dark, plasma energy of black in it. Its power at full charge in but a few seconds, Anubis prepared to release this power at Yugi.

His attack was stopped immediately. A nearby explosion released Anubis' hold on Yugi, allowing him to escape. The hold had been release because the arm that held him down had been blasted off! Yugi looked up at Anubis to see he was missing an arm, blood dripping from the place the arm used to be jointed. Anubis yelled in pain for a moment and stood on his hind legs. He turned his head to the opposite direction and saw the cause of his arm loss.

Standing next to his X-Y-Z Battle Cannon, Seto Kaiba directed his monster's guns at Anubis. The others had forgotten to grab his body while he was still in the state of unconsciousness. He had become sentient and immediately wanted vengeance on Anubis for what he had done. Kaiba was well aware he had played the fool for Anubis, though he did not wish to believe in such magic.

Even though he was happy to see Seto awake and that he had really saved his life using his monster, Yugi was confused on how Seto was able to bring life to his monster. He then removed the three God cards from his pocket.

"You scum! You double crossed me!" Seto scowled. "And nobody has back stabbed me and gotten away with it!"

Though he lacked an arm, Anubis only laughed at his comment.

"Well then, Seto, I shall be the first!" Anubis snarled.

The crystal pyramid still around his neck, the black marble glowed. Suddenly, dead souls began pouring out of Yugi's puzzle. It was the dead souls Anubis had put there earlier, and now he was using them to regain health and power. The fallen off arm began moving back to Anubis' body, the blood disintegrating and the arm reconnecting. The arm was then rejoined with him, looking as if it had never been blown off. Both Seto and Yugi stood in shock as they watched this affect.

His claws out, Anubis swung the back of his hand directly at Seto. When swiped in the air, the claws extended and slashed four large and deep cuts into Seto's chest. Blood flew and his body flailed back to the ground from the impact, blood still spilling. Using a blast of dark plasma, Anubis destroyed the X-Y-Z Battle Cannon with ease, the explosion also affecting Kaiba who was nearby. Much blood still gushing out of his wounds, Seto tried to sit up, but found himself lying on the floor again.

"Seto Kaiba, you are pathetic!" Anubis grabbed Kaiba with one of his hands and lifted him in the air. Squeezing more blood from him, Anubis' dog head grinned at him, knowing Kaiba would live not much longer. "I had you be my puppet for quite some time, but you have outdone your usefulness. Now you are merely another stupid mortal who is trying to get in my way, and I do not like that."

Just as he planned to do to Yugi moments ago, he quickly charged his plasma and aimed for Seto's head. He would yet again fail in his procedure. This time, it would be Yugi to stop him. Behind Anubis were all three Egyptian God monsters, Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk. Each of them had sent an attack at Anubis, hitting his back. It shot wounds into him, and he again released his grasp. Kaiba's body fell several feet from the ground onto the hard floor, his back hitting it hard. Yugi ran to Seto, whose back appeared to be broken. Anubis was distracted by the attack the Gods had caused that he did not notice.

Kaiba looked insensate at first, but he slowly openned his eyes and saw Yugi above him. Yugi dared not to touch him, for Kaiba probably ached in many places. Sluggishly, Seto reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. He weakly lifted the card up, giving it to Yugi.

"Use this...and kill that weasel with it..." Seto told him, barely speaking at all.

"Kaiba," Yugi tried to talk to him, but a few moments after handing him the card, which Yugi did not even look at after taking it, had taken his last breath.

His eyes shut and body motionless, Yugi knew Kaiba was gone as well. He dragged his body next to Yami's and swore to avenge him as well. He placed the card Kaiba gave him in his pocket for the moment, because first he had to figure out how he was able to make his three Egyptian God cards into real creatures.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

They were only at the edge of the city, and yet monsters had already swamped them. With nothing but their decks, Joey and the rest of the group were unsure of what could be done. Little pieces of cardboard were not going to somehow destroy thousands of real monsters. Confused and pressured on what to do, Joey drew his strongest beast, Guilford the Lightning, from his deck.

"You're not actually thinking about throwing that at one of those things, are you?" Tristan, who held Yugi's deck, asked.

"No, but hey, if those duel monsters are real, these have to be...uh, right?" Joey threw out an absurd idea.

Joey held the card above his head and ordered it to be summoned. It came to no surprise that nothing happened. It was only a card after all. Infuriated, Joey growled and tried it once more. He held up Guilford the Lightning and called his name for him to come.

The picture on the card glowed! The light shined forward and on the city streets appeared Joey's monster. Everyone looked at his card, not sure on exactly how Joey was able to bring it to life. Nonetheless, Joey was satisfied with himself, though hopeful that the monster would actually obey his commands.

Ahead, Crawling Dragon dragged its body around the city, spitting a smoky acidic gas from its mouth. It stomped its way down the street towards Guilford, who drew his sword that suited a giant perfectly.

"'K well here goes nothin'! Guilford, attack!" Joey demanded, thinking he had nothing to lose.

Again, the entire group was in absolute shock when they saw Guilford actually listen to what Joey had said. Guilford wielded his sword over his left shoulder, dashed at the Crawling Dragon, and swung it with great force. An extra shock of electricity came with this incredible swing, and it hit the dragon right on. Sparks flying from its body, Crawling Dragon collapsed in defeat, its body was smoking.

"What the...?" Duke thought aloud. It was the most amazing yet mysterious thing he had ever seen. Not only was Guilford the Lightning a real monster, but he also obeyed.

The monsters of Koumori Dragon and Basic Insect were now making their way down the street. It was good that they found a way to defeat these monsters in the city, but there were so many more to destroy. They would have to continue making their way further into the city, but first destroying the Koumori Dragon and Basic Insect that stood in their path.

"It'll take more than Guilford, guys," Joey winked. Tristan and Pegasus knew what they must do. Duke would protect Mokuba and Tea for the time being while Pegasus would summon some creatures from his deck and Tristan would bring out some of the monsters in Yugi's deck.

Calling out the Toon Gemini Elves and Dark Magician, two more monsters from their cards were brought onto the street. Though they were still unaware of exactly how this was possible, they took that thought off their minds and concentrated on destroying as many monsters in the city as possible. Koumori Dragon and Basic Insect were beaten easily with Dark Magician and Guilford's attacks. Clearing the street for that time, the group began making their way to the city's heart, destroying more monsters in the process.

Getting close to the city's middle, they turned a corner onto another street, seeing a group of at least nine monsters assaulting a building. Since they needed to go through this street anyway, Joey, Tristan and Pegasus sent their monsters on the attack.

"Attack!" Tristan commanded the Dark Magician to do so. The wizard moved his way towards the big group of monsters and swung his wand so the end was pointing at them. He released his black magic attack, being able only to destroy two of the nine.

More monsters came from behind them. The hoard of seven monsters was now growing to over fourteen. Somewhat intimidated by the rapid increase of enemies, Joey, Duke, Tristan, Mokuba, Pegasus and Tea found themselves surrounded with only three monsters to protect them. Joey pulled Ginzo from his deck and brought him to join the fight, Tristan summoned Yugi's Buster Blader, and Pegasus put out Toon Summoned Skull. They now had six monsters, but that hardly compared to what surrounded them.

"Go!" the three that summoned monsters demanded. Their entire army of monsters flew into the group of monsters, taking them out one by one.

Still, they stood hardly a chance. They had forgotten about the monsters of the sky. From above, a Curse of Dragon swiftly flew in down onto their group of monsters. Breathing its hellish fire at them, Ginzo was the victim of this attack.

"Damnet!" Joey cried as he saw his monster blow up.

"I don't think it's done yet, either," Duke pointed out as he saw Curse of Dragon fly back at them. This time, its target was Guilford, which was arguably Joey's best monster.

"Oh great, Guilford, look out!" Joey told his monster, but Guilford would be unable to dodge it. With monsters surrounding him, he could not move far from the spot he was at, and Curse of Dragon's fire had the width to hit him from the spot he was cornered in.

"Joey?" a female voice nearby called to him. Joey turned around to see a familiar face. It was Mai, holding three of her cards in her hand.

"Mai! What are you doing here? You should leave!" Joey replied

"And miss all this? I don't think so," she said. She held up three cards, her Harpy Lady monsters, and called their names for their summon. The three female-birds emerged from the card picture and flew as a strong trio. Of course, Mai was as clueless as they were on how she was able to give them reality, but ignored the thought for then.

"Harpy Ladies, attack Curse of Dragon!" she said. Sharp talon claws prepared for attack, the Harpies attacked it together. Scratching it all over its yellow body, the Curse of Dragon could not complete its attack, thus Guilford the Lightning was safe for the moment. Mai joined Joey's large group of people in their pursuit of destroying the monsters attacking the city.

Somehow, they were able to survive that assault with Ginzo being the only loss. They continued running through streets, destroying some monsters as they came. Upon arriving towards the city's center, one of the strongest cards in all of Duel Monsters was there, shooting attacks of water, fire, and electricity at the city buildings. Remembering this creature from facing the Paradox Brothers, Joey knew this defender as the Gate Guardian.

"Not this thing again!" Joey grieved. He had faced this thing twice before, and remembered it being one of the least fun monsters to fight. Consisting of three pieces in which protected one another from attacks, the Gate Guardian would be one of the toughest of fights for their army of monsters.

"Attack, Buster Blader!" Tristan ordered Yugi's monster to move forth. With its curved blade, Buster Blader attempted to slice the Gate Guardian down with a single shot. Even with its great attack, the three-pieced monster easily deflected its attack using a powerful water jet, sending it flying backwards, but not destroying it. At this time, Pegasus ordered his Toon Summoned Skull to attack, thinking that the toon's electric attack would be conducted in the water jet sent by the Gate Guardian. Again, the attack was deflected, but by the yellow piece, the electric one. A lightning bolt was shot out, hitting Toon Summoned Skull's lightning attack and stopping it. The red piece, the fire one, then shot out a flame-thrower like blast of fire, hitting one of Pegasus' more powerful toons and destroying it.

The monsters they had would not be able to beat the Gate Guardian individually. Knowing this, they sent their group of four monsters to attack it all at once. Buster Blader and Guilford the Lightning used their powerful swords to attack it head on, the three Harpy Ladies attacked from the air, and Dark Magician used his powerful magic to shoot it from a distance. The Gemini Elves used their teamwork on it as well.

This Gate Guardian was unlike the Paradox brothers' or even the one in the video game that Joey, Mai, Kaiba, Mokuba and Yugi had been trapped in. It was clever, and timed its attack precisely as needed. When the two sword wielding monsters leaped for attack, the fire piece of the Gate Guardian burst a fireball both of them. Guilford and Buster Blader were set afire, Guilford being able to put out its fire, but Buster Blader, having been hit by it before, was burnt and destroyed.

The Harpy Ladies were flying in. The water piece of the guardian shot its powerful water jet upwards, knocking all three Harpy Ladies out of the air and onto the ground. The Toon Gemini Elves, being opportunists, used this moment to attack, but the electric pieces blasted a powerful bolt of electricity right at them, sending them back right into the Dark Magician, preventing him from attacking as well.

All of their monsters down at the time, the Gate Guardian moved to attack all of them, their masters included. The group backed up only to run into a building's wall. They had been cornered, and the powerful Gate Guardian shadowed them from the moonlight.

"Berserk Dragon!" a familiar voice coming from behind the guardian shouted. "Attack!"

A tan dragon with an unusual large head and mouth flew in from behind. Its entire body except its head was almost like a fossil of a dinosaur, but despite its fossilized looks, it moved quickly and held a great attack power. It opened its mouth, and a burst of dangerous black gas blasted out. The attack hit and exploded on top of the Gate Guardian, forcing it to fall over. Though it was not defeated, it had been hit and some what weakened. When the guardian fell over, the gang saw who had saved them.

"Bakura!" Tristan called to the white haired boy, who waved back to him. His great beast, Berserk Dragon, flew back to him.

"Where did you come from?" Duke asked him.

"A little bit ago, I saw you all running down the street and decided to follow you," he lied. "It's a good thing I did, too. You would have been killed."

"Don't rub it in, but thanks for the help anyway," thanked Joey.

The Gate Guardian began to rise again. Joey, Tristan, and everyone else had went by Bakura and his dragon before then. Their monsters followed.

"Its back is to us. If we attack now, we might be able to destroy it easily," Bakura suggested. It was true, because the heavy guardian, facing the direction Joey and the others had been before, was still trying to stand up again. Distracted by this attempt, the Gate Guardian was in a state of vulnerability. Everyone agreed that it would be a good time to strike.

Bakura's undead dragon was the first to strike, seeing how it was arguably the strongest creature of the group. It used its same attack, and again it knocked the guardian down. The three Harpy Ladies, Guilford the Lightning, and Toon Gemini Elves went next, each hitting with their best techniques. Finally, Yugi's Dark Magician used his magic to deliver the final blow.

"Yes!" Mai hissed happily.

They would have little time to celebrate their accomplishment. A big shadow from above the tall city buildings flew over them. In the shape of a large dragon body with five heads, this shadow was flying in the direction of the Dome, where Yugi was fighting Anubis. This five headed dragon, the legendary Five-God Dragon, was a monster Mokuba, Mai and Joey had come across at least once, none which were pleasant encounters.

"Five-God Dragon? Why?" Mokuba cried out.

The mighty dragon was flying in a large circle above the city, its body moving spirally. Because of its magnificent strength, the dragon taunted the city, roaring as it flew in circular motions. Its first target was clearly the Dome, seeing how it stared at nothing else. Still, it had felt it was necessary to savor power over what it wanted to claim its territory.

"What's...it doing?" Tea, who had hardly said anything the entire trip, asked of its actions.

"Marking its territory," Bakura said. "It wants to destroy the city and remake it to how it pleases. I think it wants to destroy the Dome first because it's the most eye catching and most isolated building of the city."

"Well while it's busy making itself look like a jackass, its best of we get over to the Dome, 'cause I think that's its first thing on its 'to destroy' list," Duke commented.

"We're in the middle of the city! How are we going to get there before it does?" Mokuba asked him.

Bakura signaled his dragon to kneel. Its long, though not snake like, body bent down, standing on its two long legs and narrow arms. Bakura waved for everyone to come on his dragon, showing them that Berserk Dragon would be their way of transportation. Everyone, except Duke who had wanted a break from carrying Tea around, gave Bakura a strange look of fear and craziness. With no other faster way of getting back to the Dome, however, they climbed on to Bakura's dragon, which then began flying to the Battle Dome.

He had all three Egyptian God monsters out, but even so the situation was not in Yugi's favor. As long as Anubis could heal himself, even Osiris, Obelisk and Ra would have the most difficult fight defeating him. Anubis' jackal form, supposedly the form of an Egyptian God monster, looked weaker than the others, being a bit smaller in size, but had its own distinct advantages.

"So here they are: Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk, the mighty three Egyptian Gods," Anubis scoffed, just recovering from the last hit he had taken. "The four God strengths reunited for the clash of history."

Yugi knew not the story of the origination of the three Egyptian God monsters, but figured he already had one up on Anubis, so bothered not to ask about it.

"You're out numbered by the three strongest and most feared beasts in duel monsters," pointed out Yugi. "Your strength is only equal to theirs, and with three versus one, you don't stand a chance!"

"Fool! You know nothing of the reality of strength each God power has," he laughed. "Ra's power originates from the Sun God, the Saint Dragon's contains some power of the God of Death and Resurrection in Eternal Life, and Obelisk of the Guardian from Evil and Misfortunes. I contain the God of the Dead's strength, and while the strength of all four God monsters are equal, their powers are distinctively different."

"What?" Yugi said, confused.

"Ra's phoenix formation would be its additional power along with its flaming strength. Osiris' power weakens his opponents with the use of his second mouth. Obelisk's additional power comes from the absorbing of power by the monsters which sacrifice themselves to it," he explained. "And as for Anubis, the power to bring alive the dead, or in other words, healing what is gone."

Yugi fell silent for a moment.

"Ra, Obelisk and Osiris contain marvelous strengths and powers, but none that which can compare to Anubis'!" he stated.

Things were beginning to make a bit more sense to Yugi. Though Anubis boasted this power within him, because of the God of Anubis' additional power, Yugi still felt Anubis could not win against the three other Gods.

"You doubt them too much," Yugi snarled. "And when they stand atop of your corpse after your defeat, you'll regret everything you've done."

"I will regret nothing, even if I were to be defeated on this day," he chuckled. "Delay no longer the clash of the generation! Let me prove that I contain the mightiest strength of the Gods!"

The roof above them had suddenly disappeared. The dark night sky hung high above them, clouds blocking the light from the moon and stars. Being another one of Anubis' additional effects, this fight would mainly take place in the air and was to be seen by no one else. All four beasts of legend took flight. And so began Gods' Battle.

Osiris, with his long body, moved to strike first. Opening both large jaws, he flew his slithery towards Anubis. His thin jackal body flew swiftly upward, Osiris' wrap attempt missing. Ra, taking its fiery phoenix formation, moved like a comet in the sky, leaving behind flashes of ember as it flew. Anubis packed magnificent speed and thus was able to dodge Ra's attack as well. Obelisk went to attack directly after Ra's miss, closing his large fists and swung a gigantic punch right at the jackal. His right fist hitting Anubis right in the upper chest area, his angel wings stopped flapping momentarily as his body began falling quickly from thousands of feet high.

Anubis proved that the power of feeling he had claimed to have was no lie. His chest, where Obelisk had directly punched it, began to glow as bones shifted back into place and other damaged parts reconnected and healed. Soon after the glow, Anubis began flying once again, this time sending out his own attack. He spat his highly acidic, toxic saliva at the God of Obelisk, but Ra's flaming body flew in the attack's path, blocking it and having no effect on Ra. Osiris opened his top, smaller mouth and blasted some kind of lightning energy that was meant for weakening its opponent. Though aiming accurately, Anubis was still too fast and dodged it, the lightning attack shooting off into the distance. Obelisk had prepared his fists for a long-range attack, shooting blue balls of energy from both of them. Anubis zipped from side to side in the sky, dodging the two energy balls from Obelisk's fists. Ra had come out of its phoenix form and had been charging a large ball of fire and light in its beak-like mouth. Once at its strongest point, Ra shot it at Anubis. Anubis amazingly dodged that attack as well, his blinding speed moving him out of the way.

"Attack all at once and not individually!" Yugi cried up to the three Egyptian Gods.

Yugi's three Egyptian Gods' formed a triangle around Anubis, surrounding him. He tried to flee from it, but the three followed him, remaining in that same formation, continuing to surround him. All three were building their attacks, and as the attacks grew, they flew closer to him so he was less likely to escape. All in one shot, Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk blew their massive attacks at Anubis. Being sly and quick, Anubis flew up, the three attacks barely missing him and colliding with each other instead. An explosion with the impact of an atomic bomb went off, the explosion affecting all four in the sky.

Being somewhat of an opportunist, Anubis' time to attack had arrived. The smoke clearing in the sky, Osiris, Obelisk and Ra were recovering from the effects of the explosion. Anubis had recovered his damage once again, and with his foes distracted, he could easily damage them. Using his sharp, deadly claws, he flew blinding fast and slashed his paw across the chest of Obelisk. Four wide and deep marks of black were across his body, and Obelisk cried in pain as he flew to ground level, hoping to recover. Right after his assault on Obelisk, Anubis aimed directly for Osiris. A black energy surrounded his body as he flew his body right under Osiris' chin. A loud, yet smaller explosion went off after the collision, and Osiris began falling from the sky to the ground in the Dome. Finally, Anubis struck Ra after charging his destructive attack of dark power. Bolts of dark energy jolted from Ra's body as it also fell back to the ground.

Yugi's three God monsters lied on the ground in front of him, yelling in pain. They were not yet defeated, but had clearly been cut down in power. His monsters began to stand again as Anubis flew down to the Dome, standing on all four legs in front of them.

"Have I made the truth visible to you now?" Anubis said. "I cannot be defeated, you fool! I am nearly invincible!"

Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk stood tall and cried loudly at Anubis. They were prepared to go at it once again, even in a situation where they were in a large hole. Spreading their wings, they began flying back into the sky once again. Anubis only laughed as he flew up with them, continuing the battle that could have been endless.

The sense of doubt grew stronger in Yugi. Anubis held the strength to regain his health in any situation, and his three God monsters were not doing well in battle. It was not because they lacked in power, but Anubis was overly strong in power. Reviewing this situation over and over in his head, Yugi began to question himself and his monsters, and became more confident in Anubis' statement. Anubis boasted a power that made him nearly undefeatable, and Yugi began pondering if there was any hope left.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Flying on the back of an undead beast was an interesting experience. Though untrusting of it, Bakura's Berserk Dragon was able to get it over to the Dome quickly, minutes before Five-God Dragon approached. Five-God Dragon would be at least twice as strong and difficult to beat as the Gate Guardian was, and with most of the monsters they had, and the conditions they were in, beating the five headed dragon would be near impossible

Climbing off Berserk Dragon, Joey took his deck from his pocket, contemplating whether to summon another monster for this fight.

"Another monster from each of you wouldn't hurt," Bakura told them. Strange enough, nobody noticed how much Bakura knew on what to do in this situation. In his own mind, Bakura could only grin.

Tristan looked through Yugi's deck and found one that would definitely be of help at this time. It had been a card Yugi had not used in a while, but nonetheless was a strong one.

"Black Luster Soldier!" Tristan cried out. He lifted the card and it glowed, bringing out the legendary warrior. A black light surrounded this mighty fighter as he swung his sword, showing he was ready for battle.

Again, Bakura's odd actions went unnoticed.

"Nice choice!" Joey complimented. He looked through his deck as Mai and Pegasus summoned one other monster from their decks.

"Harpy's Pet Dragon!" she held up the card and moments later, the pink and black dragon appeared.

"Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon!" Pegasus laughed as he sent out his strongest toon. Mokuba snarled when he saw the beast, knowing his brother absolutely hated this toon, while Pegasus seemed to adore it.

Joey finally found the card he had been looking for. He had to go through the entire Battle City tournament without this card, but now he finally had it back in his deck, and it would be his first time using it in quite some time. Joey smiled, the card reminding him of Yugi, and held it up for it to be called to the fight.

"Red-Eyes Black Dragon!" he called upon the first card he had ever won. The ferocious black dragon was then brought to the earth.

So, with an army of Red-Eyes, Toon Dragon, Pet Dragon, Harpy Ladies, Dark Magician, Black Luster Soldier, Toon Gemini Elves, Guilford the Lightning, and Berserk Dragon, they waited for the arrival of Five-God Dragon, ready to assault it with the strongest beasts they had.

No sooner had the mystical beast came. At first, the legendary dragon ignored the group, thinking they were just the normal monsters it had seen attacking the city. However, after taking a weak blow from the Gemini Elves, who had been launched up at the dragon by Harpy's Pet Dragon's tail, its attention went from the Dome to them. With just a swipe of its claws, the Toon Gemini Elves were destroyed.

"Why did we have to sacrifice my two sexy elves? They were nothing but innocent toons!" Pegasus exclaimed, almost crying. Mokuba kicked him hard in the leg to stop his whining.

"You brat! What was that for?" Pegasus began yelling at Mokuba again. Wisely, Mokuba ignored the eccentric man, making Pegasus turn his attention back to Five-God Dragon.

"They were kinda hot though," Duke said under his breath. Tea, who he was again holding, slapped him on the back of his head.

Five-God Dragon took flight, soaring high above the others. With Dark Magician riding on the back of Red-Eyes, Black Luster Soldier on Dead Berserk Dragon's, and Guilford the Lightning on the back of Harpy's Pet Dragon, all of their monsters chased after it. Five-God Dragon wasted little time to attack. All five heads blasted several different types of attacks, including fire, electricity, and magic, at them. This first attack was easily dodged, but the dragon attacked rapidly and consistently, and was continuously moving, making it a difficult target to hit.

"Everyone attack!" they all shouted up to their monsters high in the sky.

All the dragons of the group, Blue-Eyes, Red-Eyes, Berserk Dragon and Pet Dragon charged their attacks and then shot it at Five-God. The large but fast dragon moved out of the way of each attack. Dark Magician tried his attack as well, but it also dodged. The dragons flew closer to the Five-God so that Black Luster Soldier and Guilford's swords were within striking distance. Using its huge wings, Five God Dragon flapped harshly, forcing the dragons to back away to avoid contact. Mai's Harpy Ladies attempted attack it from behind, but with excellent reflexes, Five-God Dragon turned around and all five heads quickly snapped at them with their jaws. Only two Harpy Ladies escaped their grasps, the third not so lucky as each dragonhead bit at her and destroyed her.

Five-God Dragon attempted to attack physically, flying its large body towards Red-Eyes, Blue-Eyes, Berserk Dragon and Pet Dragon. Having a thin body, Red-Eyes had an edge and was able to avoid the tackle. Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon was also able to dodge successfully, being a much smaller size than any other dragon. Berserk Dragon and Harpy's Pet Dragon were able to duck and avoid contact, but certainly they would not be so lucky next time. Again, after dodging, the three dragons attacked again. All five dragonheads spit separate attacks stopping their attacks plus sending two other blasts at them. Dark Magician and Black Luster Soldier's attacks were able to deflect them.

The fight dragged on, Five-God Dragon not getting any weaker what so ever. All their monsters attempted to charge at it all at once and attack physically, but the dragon was much too big and strong and easily slammed them out of the way. Fighters on the backs of some of the dragons nearly fell off after this collision. Four of the five dragonheads at this time charged one mighty attack as the fifth aimed its attack at the Dome. Sacrificing themselves, the remaining two Harpy Ladies flew in front of this attack, preventing it from hitting the Dome, but being destroyed in the process. As for the charged attack, the four dragons plus Black Luster Soldier, Dark Magician, and Guilford's attack were able to deflect it.

"This isn't working," Duke growled, seeing Mai's two other Harpies being destroyed.

"Somehow, we need to slow down its flying," said Bakura.

"No shit, Sherlock. Any ideas how?" Tristan remarked.

"What about its wings? If we weaken the wings, its flying will slow down at least," suggested Joey. For once, they agreed on the idea.

"Attack the wings!" Bakura shouted.

Their monsters were able to hear the demand, and somehow came up with an idea on how to do so. Each of the dragons were in front of Five-God, and at a medium speed, flew at it. At first, it looked as if it were going to be another physical assault, but when each dragon plus Dark Magician charged and shot their attacks, Five-God Dragon countered with its five heads using their own attacks. Exactly after each attack collided, Black Luster Soldier and Guilford the Lightning jumped off the backs of the dragons towards the two wings of their enemy. With their powerful swords, they made a huge slice in its wings. The attack was so quick that Five-God Dragon was unaware of the strike until after being hit. After slashing at the wings, Luster Soldier and Guilford landed safely on the backs of the dragons in which they had been on before.

The seemed to work. Hitting its wings slowed Five-God a bit, and not only did it fly slower, but it also did not fly as high. Flying at a lower level made it easier for everyone to see what was happening. But it was then that Five-God Dragon began attacking more aggressively, its five heads starting to blast balls of different types rapidly. At first, most of their monsters were able to dodge effectively or deflect the attack with their own, but because the attacks were coming so fast, dodging and deflecting became difficult. Each dragon took a hit from Five-God's attack, sending them to the ground and whomever they were carrying fell off. They gathered themselves quickly and were back in the air in a matter of seconds, but Five-God's vicious attacks continued. Taking blow after blow, the fight was becoming one sided.

"Damnet!" Joey growled extremely frustrated at the time.

"We out number it by six, yet we can't even hit it," said Duke.

"Yeah, but each head can attack individually, so it's almost like we only out number it by one," stated Bakura.

Joey thought for a minute.

"Wait, what if we leave five monsters for it to attack in front, and then have another one sneak up from behind to attack it?" Joey suggested.

"But its reflexes are like a cat," Tristan said.

"Not if it's distracted," Joey told him.

The rest of the group was unsteady about the idea, but nothing else seemed to be working. Although they had enough monsters to do so, Five-God Dragon was fast and could likely counter the move. Yet any idea seemed better than no idea, so they decided to take the risk.

"Red-Eyes, sneak attack!" yelled Joey to his dragon, which also carried the Dark Magician.

Red-Eyes Black Dragon, stealthily, began flying higher. Five-God Dragon was too distracted with the other three dragons plus Guilford and Black Luster Soldier to notice. Flying so high that it was out of sight, Red-Eyes and Dark Magician seemed to disappear from battle.

"That thing better hurry, 'cause I don't know how much longer our monsters are going to last," Mai pointed out. Each of their monsters seemed to be tiring and lacked full power. Five-God Dragon was still attacking aggressively, and the dodging and deflecting of their monsters seemed to be less consistent.

The remaining monsters, without Red-Eyes and Dark Magician, grouped together and blasted their mightiest attack at the five-headed dragon. All five monsters shooting their long-range attacks, Five-God's five heads combined their attacks and shot it at them. The attacks collided and repelled one another, but Harpy's Pet Dragon, Berserk Dragon, Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon, Guilford and Black Luster Soldier kept their attacks coming, forcing Five-God to continue its attack as well.

A black shadow lowered from the sky behind Five-God Dragon. It was another monster, one with red eyes with some kind of wizard on its back. Undoubtedly, it was Joey's Red-Eyes and Yugi's Dark Magician, which had carefully sneaked their way behind Five God without being noticed. While Five-God Dragon was attacking the others, Red-Eyes and Dark Magician charged their attacks to the greatest of strength. In a powerful blast of red, orange and black, Red-Eyes and Dark Magician launched their attacks right at it. A direct hit! A large explosion went off on Five-God Dragon's back as it screeched in pain. It fell from the air to the ground, landing on its front side.

"Whoa, yeah!" Tristan was happy to see Five-God brought to ground level. The rest of the monsters also floated down to the ground, surrounding their enemy.

"Finish it off! Attack all together now!" Joey demanded, seeing Five-God Dragon trying to get back on its feet.

Guilford, Dark Magician, and Black Luster Soldier hopped off of the dragons' backs as each dragon set off their attacks. Five-God Dragon, still trying to redeem itself from the blow before, did not repel these attacks. Berserk Dragon, Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon, Red-Eyes, and Harpy's Pet Dragon's attacks all hit the legendary dragon at once. The mythical beast caught fire, but was not yet finished. Dark Magician sent a ball of black magic at it, weakening it more, as Guilford took his electric sword and slashed across its body, causing sparks to fly. Finally, Yugi's Black Luster Soldier's sword glowed with a blinding light. Standing and aiming the blade right down the center of his enemy, he smacked the sword's blade down to the ground, causing some kind of powerful light energy to fissure from the ground over to Five-God Dragon. Once this mighty attack struck, Five-God's body shined brighter, and then all five heads were blown off.

Five-God Dragon was finally defeated.

"Woo!" everyone cheered. They were so proud and relieved they had defeated one of the strongest monsters of almost all duel monsters. Not only that, but they had possibly saved Yugi from being caught in the destruction of the Dome, assuming of course he was still alive.

"Nice call, Joey," Tristan complimented.

Rest had came in short periods of time for them. Down the road, a huge group of different monsters were approaching them. Mixed of several kinds of monsters, this group was led by Black Tyranno, a powerful dinosaur-type monster. This seemed to be a herd or pack of some sort.

They had just finished destroying a tough Five-God Dragon, but once again could not stop for rest or celebration. They had to continue fighting. While exhausted, they readied themselves and their monsters for yet another fight, where they were out numbered by possibly hundreds.

"I sure hope Yugi boy in there is awfully close to killing that hag," Pegasus stated, annoyed by the continuous assaults of monsters. "This is getting ridiculous. What if he's already dead?"

"No! He can't be dead!" Tea was in denial. "Not after everything he's done to stop him!"

"Want to bet, sweetheart?" Pegasus glared at her.

It was true that the likeliness of Yugi still living was not very. The group fell silent for the moment, knowing this.

"Well," Joey broke the silence. "We're gonna keep fighting...for Yugi,"

Everyone was with Joey at this point.

"You ready?" Tristan and Duke asked of Joey.

Joey put a large grin on his face, hoping that this would not be the end of the line.

"You bet," he told them.

"Attack!" they said all together, their monsters launching themselves into battle once again.

Tides were only getting rougher for Yugi and his Egyptian Gods. Anubis and the three of them had been exchanging blow after blow, yet Anubis was the only one unaffected by the hits. Yugi could only watch as his monsters were slowly being brought down. Yugi had not helped much either, all of his ideas and instructions failing. Yugi looked up to see Osiris take another hit from Anubis. He felt as if he were watching his own defeat. Depressed, he put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, feeling that he had let everyone down.

He felt something in his left pocket. He pulled out a card that he thought he had accidentally taken out of his deck, but realized it was much more. It was the card Kaiba had given him before he perished. He recalled Kaiba telling him to use it to kill Anubis. He had not yet looked at what the card was, so he flipped it over to the front side and saw it was one of Seto's newer, yet stolen, cards: the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon.

Thinking about this card and why Kaiba had insisted using that card to defeat Anubis, Yugi knelt down, staring blankly at the card. True the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon was quite powerful, but it did not have the strength of the Egyptian God cards, and the God cards at this point were losing the fight. Yugi could not see the significance in this card and how it could be of any benefit to him, especially at that moment.

He looked at the card picture, the beautiful shining dragon flying elegantly. The figure of this monster reminded him of something, and Yugi thought hard to remember. It was at the museum! He had been there earlier that day, and remembered seeing a hieroglyphic of this dragon. He tried to remember what his grandfather had told him about this dragon, about what gave it its magnificent power. This beast used to work under Anubis' command, and was given the power to gain strength for each man that was killed by Anubis' doing. So odd that a creature as gorgeous as it had been under the influence of evil.

Yugi snapped back to reality after remembering his excursion to the museum from earlier, and realized that this was indeed just what he needed to use. How Seto knew this card was needed he was not sure, especially since he believed not in past events, but he was grateful that he had given it to him. For now he had what it took to defeat the fiend. Once given life, it would gain power from all the death he had brought, not just to his friends, but to the world on this night. Combined with the incredible strength of the Gods, Anubis would be unable to recover from such an attack.

He had still been kneeling near the ground when he prepared to use the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon. He started to stand and began lifting the card above his head when he heard the sound of flesh ripping. Yugi looked over his shoulder to see that there had been another survivor. His alter ego, the pharaoh Yami Yugi, still lived, his body now sitting up. It was then Yugi realized Yami had never been gone. He had been down, but not out, and with the puzzle around his neck, he still found ways to help Yugi. Weakly, Yami showed Yugi a smile, his body still aching and pouring blood. He had removed the dagger from his chest, the wound from it still bloody and deep.

"Yami," he said softly. He had little strength left and was continuing to fight death as he sat on the ground. Yami stared into Yugi's eyes, knowing that it would be Yugi to liberate the earth of Anubis' evil.

"Set it free," he said softly, putting his hand on Yugi's shoulder for a moment. Yugi smiled at his friend and rose to his feet. Yami had been ready to activate the puzzle's magic.

Anubis and the three Egyptian Gods were now inside the Dome, flying feet above Yugi. Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk flew next to one another, Anubis being on the opposing end with Yugi. His back was turned to Yugi, making the opportunity for Yugi even greater.

"It's time to end this," Yugi mumbled. "Come to the earth and shed your power, Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon!"

The Millennium Puzzle glowed as the card lit up. Lights in the shape of a dragon flew from the card picture. The light grew larger and larger until it was just hardly smaller than Anubis was. The light dimmed and what remained from it was the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon itself. A baby blue light shined around its body, indicating that its strength was increasing.

Anubis turned around to see the beast that had once been his facing off against him. His body froze in place as he saw Yugi holding the card in the air, knowing that it was he that had allowed the dragon to return, only this time opposing his old master. Even worse, he saw the one he thought he had put to rest, the pharaoh, sitting up, using the Millennium Puzzle to help.

"You," he growled at Yami, who could only return him with a grin. "You have put my own creation against me."

He found it unbelievable that the pharaoh still lived. He was in a complete state of shock, moving not and staring only at Yami, though it was not him that he should have been worried about. The Egyptian God monsters were still in battle with him, and it was Yugi that would deliver the order of Blue Eyes' attack. He was well aware of the power his dragon boasted. Right as he saw it, he knew he was staring into defeat.

"You failed at all you attempted!" Yugi yelled to him. "And you're paying for your dark intentions!"

Anubis did not argue back, the mortal being correct.

"Light fades away, but darkness always remains," were of his final words. "Dim the light, and darkness will proceed its way through."

Yugi paused for a moment.

"Now proceed. Allow the light within to avenge the fallen!" Anubis was almost demanding. He turned back to the Egyptian Gods and was charging his dark attack, his final move.

"Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, attack!" ordered Yugi. "Combine your powers with the three beasts of the Gods!"

Spreading its glorious wings, the Shining Dragon flew at its old master. Its body still glowing with a baby blue color, it opened its mouth and began strengthening a powerful shot of light energy. Osiris, Ra, and Obelisk were doing the same, only they were to combine their strengths as one, as they had done in the duel. As a shot of desperation, Anubis launched his final attack at the three Egyptian Gods. The mythical creatures then released their attacks, all three powers of red, blue and yellow, combining to one in a pink flame, just like before. This great attack devoured Anubis' attack and continued making its way at him. At the same time, the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon had built up its attack to the point where it was about to burst. It sent off this massive stream of light energy that was indescribably powerful. Together, the Blue-Eyes' attack along with the Egyptian Gods' attack hit Anubis directly in one huge boom.

Howls of pain came from Anubis. The attacks still hitting him, his body began to melt away into a puddle of blood. His body turned red as it started turning into liquid. Slowly his body became smaller, and his form began to become nothing more than a blob. Eventually, once the attacks were completely carried out, his body had completely melted away as the puddle of blood he had become disintegrated away.

Soon after, the bodies of the monsters Yugi had summoned were doing the same, their souls returning to where they had been before, to where they should have been.

Outside the Dome, the gang had just sent their monsters to once again attack. A huge herd of monsters were coming for them, and this was their only breach of defense. They refused to coward out and flee, though this seemed to be the end of the line for them.

All of the sudden, all the monsters, even their own, began to melt. Their bodies turned to blood and they began to turn into puddles. The monsters of the sky fell to the ground and became blood puddles, which were absorbed into the ground and disappeared. Screams from the monsters were all over the city as they melted. Joey's, Pegasus', Mai's, Yugi's, and Bakura's monsters were also fading, but showed no signs of pain.

"What's happening? They're all disappearing!" Mai cried as her Harpy's Pet Dragon became nothing more than a puddle of blood.

"They're disappearing from the world. Their souls are returning to the world of shadows which they dwelled before," Bakura stated as his Berserk Dragon melted as well. "Those that fought for light feel not the pain that the dark ones do."

"But why is this..." Joey began to ask, but he looked over his shoulder at the Battle Dome. "He did it."

"He wouldn't let us down," Tristan told them.

Eventually, all the monsters faded and all of them had disappeared and returned to the shadows. For a little bit, the group stared at the city, the wind blowing at their faces. It had finally ended.

"I'll take Tea, you guys go make sure the city's all good," Tristan told Pegasus, Duke, Bakura and Mai. Duke put Tea in Tristan's arms as he nodded his head in respect at Tristan.

"I wonder if the bar is still open," Pegasus thought aloud.

"Thanks, Bakura!" Mokuba thanked him cheerfully as he shook his hand. Bakura blinked his friendly eyes and smiled back.

"Not bad, Joey," Mai complimented. Joey winked at her as they finished their good-byes and she ran off along side Duke, Pegasus and Bakura.

Bakura was filled with nothing but grins, knowing he now had a second chance.

The Dome was silent for the moment. Yugi inhaled a breath of relief that it had been over for the night. He put the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon and the three Egyptian God cards back in his pocket as he turned back to his friend. It was a horrible sight as he heard Yami's breathing become heavy and blood leaked from his mouth. His hands, soaked in blood, were holding his chest, and he could hardly keep his eyes open. Having not any longer the physical strength, he began falling back. Worrying heavily, Yugi ran over to him, catching him before he collapsed onto his back. He put his knees under him, his arms holding his head up.

"It's too late now! You can't go! Not now!" Yugi screamed as his eyes became watery with tears.

"I wouldn't..." he was barely able to say. His breathing overlapped with his speaking, so words were hardly able to escape from him. He weakly coughed out blood.

"You're not supposed to die! You won't die! It's...it's too soon!" tears rolled down his face as he pleaded to his friend to fight off death.

"I-it...is...I...know..." he screeched softly. His body trembled as his eyelids slowly shut. It was impossible for him to fight any longer.

"No! Don't do this! Please!" Yugi hollered louder, but there was nothing he could do.

His eyelids shut tight and his heavy breathing came to a sudden stop. His body had become cold and motionless, and his head was no longer being held up by the use of the muscle in his neck. Yugi put his hand on his heart and felt no pulse. This time, it was no trick: Yami was really gone.

"Is this destiny?!" Yugi hugged Yami's head close as he cried to the sky.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Joey, Tristan, Mokuba and Tea ran into the building through the hole that earlier monsters had put in the wall. They were ready to congratulate Yugi and squeeze him to death with hugs, but were unable to when they saw Yugi holding his lifeless friend in the center of the dome. Mokuba's attention was turned to his brother, who was lying lifeless as well nearby. He ran over to him as the rest slowly approached Yugi, who was crying uncontrollably for his friend's death.

"Yugi..." Joey knelt beside him.

"This can't be it! Not after everything that has happened! I refuse to believe that all of it was for nothing, and he was brought back to die like this!" he started complaining, still shedding tears. "If this is what fate is, then fate can screw itself!"

It was true. The secrets of his past were still a mystery to him, and just after they had found a way to solve these mysteries, this had to occur. It all seemed too pointless for him to return and never figure out what he desired. There needed to be more of a reason for him to come back.

Yugi continued holding and crying for Yami. Nothing could relax him from such a loss. Joey stayed next to him, hoping he could find some way to comfort him. It was useless. It seemed like Yugi would never reel from such a catastrophe.

Tristan looked at Tea and saw that the marks on her face caused by the mummies had disappeared. With confused looks on their faces, Tristan put Tea down and found she was able to stand again. She looked down and noticed that all of her wounds were beginning to heal. The blood was soaked back up into the wounds and then they shut and disappeared as if they had never been there. Scars were not even left behind. Tea felt just as she had before she fell into the hoard of mummies. It was then thought that the death of Anubis had caused such healing.

All except Yugi glanced at Yami. His wounds were also disappearing. Blood returned the veins of the body as bones reconnected and the stab wounds closed. The blood that ran from his mouth disintegrated and not a single scar was left behind.

"The blood he shed existed no longer after his disintegration," Tea repeated a part of the prophecy from the tablet. "This is it! This was his curse!"

Yugi did not notice, but Yami's eyes reopened. He felt Yugi's tears drop from his face onto him. Seeing his little friend in a state of sadness, he reached his arm up and his hand lifted his chin.

"It is too soon, I know. That is why I would never allow death to separate us at this time," he completed his statement from before.

Yugi was overjoyed to see Yami alive again. A huge smile on his face, he leaped into his friend's arms and hugged him. The two of them stood up again as Yugi released his hug. His arm wiped his tears from his face as their bodies began to glow. They became lights with human shapes and then the taller of the two shrunk down to Yugi's normal height as the other disappeared into the puzzle. The light faded and Yugi and Yami were again reunited in one body.

"Yug!" Joey and everyone else went to their friend.

"Hey," he said happily. "Glad to see you're all ok!"

"We're fine, but dude, how much of an ass kicking did you deal Anubis with your God cards?" Tristan had to ask.

"Uh, I wouldn't call it that at all," he replied. They were only kidding. They were happier to see him alive and well.

"Big brother!" Mokuba shouted with joy. "You're alright!"

Finally getting to his feet, Seto stood up, though there were four large scratch-shaped holes in his shirt. He rubbed his head and looked around the severely damaged Battle Dome. He started throwing a fit after seeing how badly it was damaged.

"Damnet! Who did this? Who hired a crane to come and knock holes into my beautiful dome?" Seto cried, apparently in disbelief of everything that happened.

"That's not a bad idea. I'll hire some guy that knows how to work a crane and have him smash up your business headquarters!" Joey joked. Kaiba just snarled at him.

"Seto, do you remember what happened?" Yugi asked him.

"Yeah, I guess I fainted in the middle of the duel, and then I had this creepy dream about this man that did steroids trying to take over the world," Seto explained briefly. "Damnet and I was about to win!"

Everyone sighed. Nothing would get Kaiba to believe any thing they had gone through. He was still in disbelief from Battle City.

"I'll just have to have someone fix this place up then," he sighed. "Let's get out of here, Mokuba."

Seto and Mokuba were beginning to leave the Dome, but Yugi stopped them.

"Seto, whether you believe what happened with Anubis or not, we both know that you would have won that duel had there not been interference," Yugi said him respectively.

Kaiba turned around and saw Yugi sticking out his hand, giving him a card. Seto walked over and took it from him. He looked at it and saw the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon. He stared back at Yugi, knowing that he had not admitted defeat, but given Kaiba that card in respect. Though it was really stolen from Pegasus, Seto really had no intention of giving it back to him. Not wanting to make this moment any cornier than it seemed, Kaiba nodded his head back at Yugi and walked away with his younger brother.

_There is a light in you_, Yugi thought to himself as Kaiba walked away with the card he had given him.

It had been a few mornings after the incident. Kaiba was in a rush to get to work that day. He had misplaced his cell phone somewhere and was scurrying around trying to find it. Mokuba had just woken up as Seto was calling to him.

"Mokuba, grab my cell phone, will you? It's in my desk in the den!" he asked of his younger brother.

Mokuba gladly agreed to retrieve his brother's phone. The past few days had been great between him and his brother. Seto had locked away his deck, promising Mokuba that they would build Kaiba Land before he would duel again. He decided that he needed not to duel so much and spend more time with the only piece of his family he had. For that, Mokuba was in more appreciation of his brother and was happy to see him turn over to become at least a little bit more of a family person.

He ran into the den and opened the center desk drawer. Inside of it was not only Seto's cell phone, but also something else. It was a card, protected with a special glass cover screwed shut. He had not even protected his Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards in cases like these. He lifted the card from his desk and saw that it was the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon card Yugi had given him. Mokuba smiled, assuming that perhaps Seto had really appreciated. Maybe even he had considered it a sign of some kind of bond. Mokuba could only hope, but nonetheless was very proud of his brother.

"Mokuba did you find it?" Seto called to his brother. Sneakily, Mokuba put the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon card back in the desk.

"Yeah, I got it," he said as he shut the drawer to the desk.

_Author's note: So yeah that's it! Picture the Orichalcos Doom (or Waking the Dragons in the English version) happening right after this, like some days or something. Yeah sorry if it didn't go too hot with the original story, but I tried._


End file.
